Voces del Prado

On the other side of the mirror

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

A gallery that is particularly special for me is one that existed but no longer exists. I only remember coming to the Museum once when I was a child and I perfectly remember that it was where Las Meninas was hanging.
I’ve hunted for old photos of many of the galleries and I’ve found almost all of them apart from that gallery that I remember. Not that long ago, about three or four years ago, as I used to talk to Javier Portús a lot about it, he told me that he had the same experience: photos of it had appeared, which was a relief to me as I realised I hadn’t dreamed what I remembered and that it really had been hung in that way. It actually came as a surprise to me. I remember going into that gallery and seeing a work that everyone said was very important and someone telling us: “you shouldn’t look at the painting, you have to look at the mirror and you have to look at it this way. You have to stand to one side” – I remember that – “and look at the painting like this, and that way you’ll appreciate the depth and atmosphere that it has.” That’s my memory. I remembering turning my back on the painting and looking into the mirror in order to see it. It’s what I most remember about that gallery.
I’m interested in something else about that gallery, but when it was hung differently, the way it was when I started working at the Museum. The lighting of Las Meninas came from the side. You couldn’t see it because the room was hung with fabric and the lateral lighting was chamfered and also covered in fabric so the lights weren’t very visible. You could hardly see them as they weren’t overhead lights but installed on one side. There was practically no one there on Mondays and when work permitted I used to take a wander around and I often found myself looking at the painting and thinking about things I had heard the guides say. One told you the story of the painting in one way, others in a different way and I would look at the painting and compare what I’d heard. One day I’m in the gallery and I realise the painting isn’t there: I can’t see it. I know it’s there because I can make out the frame more or less and I can see the shadow but not the painting. So the first thing I automatically thought was that “the painting hasn’t got any light”. I don’t mean it wasn’t illuminated but that the painting didn’t have any light as I had got so inside the painting that I’d removed myself from the exterior. What had happened was simply that the lights had gone out or some circuit had been turned off to do some sort of repairs. They’d simply been turned off. I felt quite disappointed in those one or two seconds that I took to realise it.