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Before 1971, a Modern Art Museum existed to house all of these collections. In 1971 the Museo del Prado was forced – and I use this word because the Museum took the matter quite badly – to reincorporate the nineteenth century collections that had previously belonged to the Museo del Prado. There was no room for these paintings in the Villanueva Buildings, so the Casón del Buen Retiro was allocated to the Museum to hold these collections.
But only 200 out of the 3,600 works could be shown in this building. Amongst these works, an extremely illustrious painting was incorporated in 1981, namely the Guernica. The whole of the ground floor of the Casón del Buen Retiro was set aside for the nineteenth century collections. So as of 1981 there was no The Lovers of Teruel [by Antonio Muñoz Degrain] or Doña Juana la Loca [by Francisco Pradilla]. This is quite unthinkable today, because these are emblematic paintings, but at the time they simply ceased to exist. You could see them in reproductions in books. But there was no The Execution by Firing Squad of Torrijos [by Antonio Gisbert], because it was either in store or rolled up.
Head of the Department of Conservation, pertaining to the Department of the 19th Century. He was the Head of the Department of 19th Century Art from 1992 to 2002. He was appointed General Assistant Director of Conservation in 2002 and held that position until 2006. He has been the Director of the Spanish National Heritage Royal Collections since 2014.
Interview recorded on May 23, 2018
