The building we look at today, located at 3 Don Ramón de la Cruz Street, built expressly to house a House-Museum, is notable for two characters who lived in it, at different times and very different from each other. .

The first of them and which gives its name to the palace is Arthur Byne, an American born in Philadelphia in 1884. Architect, photographer and illustrator, Byne arrived in Spain for the first time in 1910. Only two years later he was settled in Madrid commissioned by the Hispanic Society, an institution with which he published a series of very relevant works on art and architecture.

Byne and his wife, Mildred Stapley, made a place for themselves in Madrid's high society, they were even decorated in 1927 by Primo de Rivera, being king Alfonso XIII, for services provided to Spanish culture.

However, the reality was very different. Taking advantage of his fame as a reputed Hispanist, and his recognition by the Spanish authorities, Byne used his knowledge and contacts to obtain great profits by reselling the objects he had reviewed in his books to the highest bidder. . Many North American collectors. They were his clients. A large number of coffered ceilings came from Spain thanks to Byne.

Two of its most famous sales are the majority of the Sacramenia monastery in Segovia and the Cistercian monastery of Ovila, near Trillo in Guadalajara. Both operations had as their buyer William Randolph Hearst, an American newspaper magnate who inspired him. Orson Welles for your movie Citizen Kane. Hearst was the largest buyer of antiques between the 1920s and 1930s.

Professor José Miguel Merino from Cáceres who has investigated Byne's actions defines him as “the plunderer”, an appellation that undoubtedly defines it perfectly.

The second character who also lived in this house later is very different. Is about Blanca de Igual and Martínez Dabán.

The Municipal Statute of Madrid, of March 8, 1924, granted the vote to emancipated women and heads of family over 23 years of age. In October of that same year, the first three councilors from feminism and Catholic union associations joined the Madrid City Council: María de Echarri y Martínez, Elisa de Calonje y Paje and our second protagonist, Blanca de Igual and Martínez Dabán, Viscountess of Llánteno. Searching I have found a bibliographical gem that is part of the collections of the Memory of Madrid which illustrates us about our first three councillors, it was another era and it is immediately perceived when reading it that it takes us back in time, here I leave it to you.

A abrazo.