For collectors in search of old Madrid, the city divides into three zones, helpfully arranged by price. At the lower end, the Rastro area is home to dozens of antiques shops selling everything from 17th-century manuscripts to Art Deco lamps. The Calle del Prado, which leads from Plaza Santa Ana down to the museum, is lined with mid-range shops, which, as my El Greco experience suggests, occasionally end up with major works.

The city’s most exclusive galleries are in the Barrio Salamanca, which is a chic shopping and residential district. Serrano is Merchán’s favorite stop for 18th-century furniture, while he recommends Caylus for 17th- and 18th-century paintings.

The Barrio Salamanca is filled with modern galleries as well as classic ones. Rafael Lozano specializes in Spanish artists like Antonio Clavé, one of the leading painters of the postwar Paris school. “There’s no room for intermediate works in this market,” Lozano says. “A well-known signature isn’t enough. You have to have the signature and the quality.”

Indeed, the contemporary galleries that line Claudio Coello street in the Barrio Salamanca tend to feature well-known artists. At Rayuela, works on paper by celebrated painters like Antoni Tàpies and Antonio Saura are but one sign that this gallery tends to stick with what director Manuel Fernández-Braso calls “classic avant-garde.” The exception is a magnificent work in paint and clay by a young artist, Amaya Bozal. “Her work is so tactile,” says Fernández-Braso, “and it pushes the boundary between abstract and figurative art. That’s very Spanish.”

For more boundary-pushing, look to the scrappy Chueca and Malasaña neighborhoods for galleries that specialize in emerging art. Or go in February, when everyone who is anyone in the Spanish art world meets at Madrid’s annual ARCO fair. Last year, the fair’s first under director Lourdes Fernández, hosted 271 galleries and saw sales go up 15 percent over the previous year. Fernández attributes that success to the quality of the participating galleries: Some 600 applied for this year’s slots. But she also emphasizes that ARCO is distinguished by the city that hosts it: “The fair’s most notable characteristic is Madrid.”

Madrid-based Lisa Abend is the Spain correspondent for TIME magazine and The Christian Science Monitor.