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If I had to single out something it would be what everyone singles out: Velázquez, Goya and El Greco. But there’s much more, infinitely much more painting from numerous different places and periods. Speaking for myself I am particularly interested in the world of sculpture, which is always rather overlooked due to the overwhelming quantity and quality of the paintings, don’t you think? So sculpture gets slightly forgotten but it is also perfectly represented and there are really magnificent things and works.
I remember when we organised the courses to mark the Prado’s 175th anniversary we did one with directors of historic museums and just before that one with contemporary painters who told us about what the Prado had meant to them, and I seem to remember that absolutely all of them used the same word, which was “intensity”. The number of masterpieces per square metre in the Prado can hardly be rivalled in any other museum in the world, however big it might be. Clearly the Louvre and the Metropolitan are infinitely bigger but the Prado has an intensity greater than any other, as the modern painters so rightly said in my opinion.
Member of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Museo del Prado, appointed personally in 1993. On December 2, 1996, with the enactment of the royal decree modifying the composition of the Royal Board of Trustees ex officio membership, he became an ex officio member as the chairman of the Friends of the Museo del Prado Foundation, a position that he has held since 1988.
Interview recorded on June 12, 2018
