Spanish art and culture generated tremendous and sustained excitement in the United States during the period from approximately 1870 to 1930. This book explores why and how some of America’s greatest art collectors, including Isabella Stewart Gardner, Henry Clay Frick, Charles Deering, Archer Huntington, William Randolph Hearst, and Algur Meadows, turned to the art of Spain to expand and enrich their collections. The authors examine in lively detail the formation of the taste for Spanish art that grew from travel and visits to world’s fairs as well as the roles played by contemporary artists, dealers and advisers who were influential in importing Spanish works of art to the United States, fueling the growth of many private and later public American collections.