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I’m George Bisacca, Conservator Emeritus at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. I’m a restorer of paintings specialized in wooden supports. My first contact with the Prado Museum was in the 80’s, I think it was about 1985 or 1986, and I came with John Brealey. He was still involved in the project of cleaning Las Meninas and he came back to New York and called me into his office. He said that I needed to go with him to Madrid because they were planning to restore the great Van der Weyden, The Descent from the Cross, and the panel support needed work. He wanted me to come back with him and examine the picture and plan a treatment.
After coming to the Prado the first time, I was surprised that the studio really had no resources. They had no machinery, no materials, there was no microscope, there was no investigation tools like infrared, Xray and ultraviolet. And so, I realized I would have to bring everything I needed, so I went back to New York and then, either 1989 or 1990, I came back to begin the treatment.
Conservator Emeritus at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, specialized in panel paintings. José de la Fuente, the Prado's specialist in this field, trained with him. Since his first contact with the Museo del Prado in the 1980s under the guidance of John Brealey, he has worked with the Museum on restoration of panel paintings and, among others, on the panels of The Descent from the Cross by van der Weyden (1991-1992), The Three Graces by Rubens (1997-1998), the sketches of The Triumph of the Eucharist by Rubens (2013-2014) and Adam and Eve by Dürer (2010).
Interview recorded on October 07, 2020
