Fear was the emotion that came to mind when Ana Gamazo was first approached about putting her private art collection on display.

Gamazo and her husband, prominent Spanish businessman Juan Abelló, had spent nearly three decades amassing some 500 pieces in a collection considered by Spanish curators to rank among the best in the world. But the collection had been guided by the pair’s personal taste, leaving Gamazo terrified of how revealing the exhibition would be. “What would critics say? What would people think of the art we own?”

The couple were eventually convinced and the Abelló Collection, currently on display at Madrid’s CentroCentro Cibeles, features 160 works spanning five centuries.