Voces del Prado

Velázquez for the second time

Inmaculada Echeverría Elvira, Head of the Technical Office, 1981-Up to date

One of my opportunities right now is that we are studying our works of Velázquez for a catalogue raisonné by Javier Portús. I have the opportunity to study them for the second time in my life. It is something that makes me so proud of my career right now: having worked on the technical documentation in the 1980s and repeating the experience now in the 21st century, in many cases improving the technical documentation on these works. Especially the X-rays. It's the same system, but back then we used to do it part by part and there were areas that we missed, mainly because of how the film was placed. Now the X-rays are done in one sweep. Things have changed a lot in terms of infrared analyses. With our camera we couldn't get to all the details in a painting, and now they are done in their entirety, with great power of penetration that yields so much information. There are continuous discoveries, especially in infrared reflectography.