1990. Initial Contact

Gabriele Finaldi, Assistant Director of Conservation and Research, 2002-2015

I completed my doctoral thesis on José de Ribera and I knew that a major commemorative exhibition was going to be staged at the Museo del Prado in 1991 to commemorate the Fourth Centenary of his birth.
So in my capacity as a student and a humble researcher, I approached Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, who was the Director of the Museum at the time and also the curator for the exhibition, given that he was a leading expert on José de Ribera. These are the liberties that you can take when you are young. He was kind enough to welcome me at the Museum, at a time when the offices were still on the second floor. I remember waiting in a hall full of portraits by Mengs, before passing to an ante-chamber and then into the offices of the Museum Director. He received me with great courtesy, and as soon as I proposed collaborating on the project, given that my research was devoted to José de Ribera, his response was clear: “No, we are going to implement the project”.
But I didn’t feel discouraged and, since I knew that the exhibition would be carried out in collaboration with the Museum of Capodimonte in Naples, I took the liberty of proposing the same thing to the Director of the Capodimonte, Nicola Espinosa, who later became a great friend of mine. Without knowing me at all, he told me that they needed help with the exhibition. And that was how I managed to join the project. From that moment on, my relationship with Pérez Sánchez was entirely amiable.
That was my first contact with the Museum, because previously I had only been there as a visitor. I had come, like many other people, to see the famous “Velázquez” exhibition [1990]; I arrived after travelling all night from Jerez de la Frontera and joined the end of the queue at 5.30 a.m. And I was able to see the exhibition.