Voces del Prado

1990. Restoration of The Descent from the Cross, by van der Weyden at the Prado’s restoration department

George Bisacca, Restorer, 1985-What's on

I had to work completely alone, I didn’t speak one word of Spanish, no one else really spoke any usable English and I was completely alone with this painting in a room by myself. In New York, I had to have two enormous crates built and filled them with everything I needed, including clamps, and saws, and chisels, and gauges, and every kind of material. Even adhesive tape, good quality adhesive tape I couldn’t find. So, I shipped all those things to Madrid to begin the treatment.
The picture was already separated into various parts but it was held together on the reverse by cross pieces and I remember taking the picture apart into three or four pieces, and it was shocking to see it. One piece leaning against the wall over here and another piece over there. This great masterpiece taken apart like that, I was terrified myself of working on the thing. It’s fairly large the picture, it’s 2.62 meters by 2 meters, so I needed help moving it around; I needed help to make some temporary wooden pieces to clamp certain parts temporarily, and so on. I needed help.