This exhibition presents, for the first time, an important selection of the material, hitherto unpublished, that the Modernista architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1849-1923) collected for the production of a monographic work on Catalan Romanesque art, which never saw the light of day. It is made up of notes, files, photographs and drawings, compiled largely between 1904 and 1906, which in some cases represent the first known information about groups and pieces that today make the museums's Romanesque Painting collection justly famous, such as the apses of Santa Maria d'Àneu, Sant Pere del Burgal and Sant Climent de Taüll, or the Mosoll Frontal.

For this reason, the exhibition is installed in the Romanesque Art Gallery, side by side with the works that were the raison d'être of these documents. Its arrangement suggests the routes followed by Domènech i Montaner on his pioneering travels, and an interpretation of the phenomenon of the interest in Romanesque art in the Catalonia of the Renaixença and Modernisme is included.

The exhibition is made up of a hundred pieces, coming mainly from the Historical Archive of the COAC (Architects' Association of Catalonia), but also from other institutions such as the MNAC's Library of Art History and Department of Drawings and Prints, the Library of Catalonia, the UPC School of Architecture Library, the National Archive of Catalonia, the Vilanova i la Geltrú Railway Museum and the Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia.

Organised by the museum's Romanesque Art Department, the exhibition is being held to coincide with the publication, by the COAC, of the book Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Viatges per l'arquitectura romànica catalana (Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Travels Around Catalan Romanesque Architecture), written by Antoni Ramon and Enric Granell.

The show has been organised by the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in collaboration with Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya.