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History is “textis temporum, magistra vitae, lux veritatis, nuntia vetustatis”, and it’s not me that said it, I think it was Cicero. History by definition is the past that is present through its absence. History, if it’s the history of an institution, helps a great deal as lots of issues have been resolved or mistakes made that shouldn’t be repeated. With regard to an institution, history tells us what a lot of people were like. History is present all the time.
There are things I don’t agree with. Being in agreement in a museum like the Prado, with so much history, of which I’m a part as I’ve been here for so many years... I’ve so often remembered moments when people have put their foot in it for not knowing the past, the recent past: “If this happened to us once before, you should know that.”
Collaborator with the Museo del Prado since 1969; he passed the state exam to become a conservator in 1980. In 1986, he was appointed Head of the Department of French, English and German Painting, and has been the Head of the Department of 18th Century Painting since 2003.
Interview recorded on June 11, 2018
