National Museum of Decorative Arts

This guide to the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid centers on a single room on the fifth floor: an eighteenth-century Valencian kitchen, moved tile by tile from a noble household and rebuilt here wall for wall. It traces the scene painted across its 1,604 hand-painted tiles, a lady of the house and her servants preparing chocolate for guests, and what that small ritual meant for a wealthy family's standing at the time. Stand where the lady of the house once stood, and look up at the servants still, eternally, warming chocolate for guests.