Loading...
When we arrived at eight in the morning, the Murillo entrance was open because the suppliers passed through there with our provisions. And we entered the museum the same way. In those days there was no clocking in or anything. In order to put on our uniforms, we went straight into a little room located in a corridor, because there were no lockers or anything. When we had a moment, we would go up to have a look around the exhibition halls. And we chatted with the painters. The first painter I talked to was Ríos. I remember that one day he said to me: “I’m going to have to paint you”, and I replied “Well, all right, we shall see”. But then he never painted me. The truth is that it was another painter who did so. This copyist who painted my portrait was already painting when I joined the Prado. I met this gentleman when I was seventeen and he painted me many years later, when I was in my forties. He said to me one day: “I’m going to leave and I haven’t painted your portrait”, and I said, “Well fine, you can paint me whenever you like”. So then I gave him a photo. He painted at home thanks to the photo I’d given him and, since he came every day to paint, the next morning he’d make a few notes or he’d touch up what he’d done at home. He made me a beautiful picture measuring one meter by eighty centimeters. And he made me look really beautiful. It’s a great souvenir.
Most of the artists who copied works in the Prado lived off the copies they managed to sell, because the truth is that, years ago, they sold really well. From what I hear, now it’s practically impossible to sell them. But at that time, painters lived off the copies they made at the Prado, in addition to what they also did at home, portraits and such. But at the Prado, practically everything they copied they managed to sell. I got to know some really good copyists. I could talk to you about Antonio González, who’s a really good copyist. Or, rather, he was, because now he’s dead. Or Antonio Ríos, also a very good painter. There were many of them, but I don’t remember their names. There were at least twelve, fourteen or more easels in the halls.
She began working at the Museum as a waitress, then going on to work for gallery security, with a brief period of time at the admissions desk.
Interview recorded on May 23, 2018
