Voces del Prado

1986: We recover The Marchioness of Santa Cruz

Javier Solana Madariaga, Trustee of the Museo del Prado, 2019-What's on

With the affair concerning The Marchioness of Santa Cruz I had the odd sleepless night. Imagine what it means when, suddenly, a painting by Goya appears on the market. There were indications that it had been taken out of Spain illegally, but when we saw that this work had appeared in a Sotheby's catalogue in order to be auctioned in London, we set all the wheels in motion with our State lawyers and we also secured the support of various important law practices in Spain to ensure that the auction would never take place. We managed to stop the auction. The Spanish State had the right to purchase the work. We had the right, yes, but not the money. The Director of the Getty Museum in California at the time asked to see me. He took a plane and arrived at around two in the morning. I received him at my office. He wanted to reach some kind of agreement. For example, he said: “We could have the painting for three months of the year and you could have it for the rest of the year and we shall pay for it…”. In short, all kinds of schemes so that the Getty Museum would be able to say that it had a work by Goya. None of this came to fruition. I met a large number of people who had (and still have, because many are still alive) sufficient financial resources to purchase the work. We organised Operation “Let’s Recover The Marchioness of Santa Cruz”, and the work was finally purchased by Spaniards. This gesture has a certain beauty. We recovered the work and today we have The Marchioness of Santa Cruz on show at the Museo del Prado. In some respects, this was the first public-private collaborative initiative to improve the Prado. It created a favourable ambience and a good legislative approach towards museums, as well as addressing budgetary matters and the question of autonomy.