Voces del Prado

Moving Las Meninas

Manuel Montero Eugenia, Head of the Art Handling Staff, 1986-Up to date

In principle, Las Meninas is the icon of the Museo del Prado. It is one of the paintings that has been moved the least since I was at the Museum and every time it’s moved there’s the feeling of a performance, a sort of tension, of expectation about what might happen when you move the painting.
Moving a work is something that people generally don’t get to see. For the general public it’s like entering into a prohibited territory. I think it generates that type of expectation. It’s never easy to do because people never behave the same way, it depends on how many people are looking at you at any one time, on whether you’re thinking that you’re part of a show or if there’s a camera behind you. So people’s behaviour varies and you have to be even more careful because a slip implies a real risk.
I know we work differently if the public is watching or not. You have to get very used to working like that so that it’s the same to you if there are 20 or 50 people there, if someone is taking photos and even more so if it’s people you don’t know. So you don’t work the same way and that puts me particularly on the alert. What you’ve got in your hands is not something you can expose to any element of chance, you have to have it all under control.