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My name’s José Torreblanca and one of the most unusual episodes in my life and which I remember the most now that I’m 80, is that I’ve lived in the Museo del Prado, in the most literal sense of the words: I lived in a house in the Museo del Prado.
From what my parents told me, after the war they came to live with my maternal grandfather, who at that date was Head Porter at the Prado. This sounds very fancy but in fact it wasn’t. Among all the other lower-rank employees he was simply “primus inter pares”, but nothing to shout about. The job gave him the right to a house, the most northerly one.
We came to live in that house: my parents, my brother and I. A typical post-war family where grandparents, parents and grandchildren still often lived together. That’s not so common today. It was a different world. I’ve tried to relive my childhood and make my memory speak. Nabokov’s memoires are entitled Speak, Memory and I think it’s very good to make one’s memory speak as these days families talk to each other less. For example, I know a lot of things about my grandparents that my grandchildren don’t know about me because we talk less. In the past there was a family memory. We should remember everything about what life was like before television and central heating.
Grandson of José Prieto, Lead Concierge of the Museo Nacional del Prado during the 1940s, when he was a child he lived with his family in one of the homes belonging to the Museum.
Interview recorded on February 20, 2018
