Voces del Prado

Putting a price tag on paintings

Alicia Quintana Martínez, Head of the Education Service, 1983-2007

These are mere anecdotes. Fernando VII divided his estate among his daughters, which is something that no king had done before. That means the collection of paintings that were kept here, which was a Royal Museum, was handed down to his two daughters. They reached an agreement: Isabella was to compensate her sister for her half of the collection and it was to stay together as one. But to be able to compensate you need to know what everything is worth. For the first time, some experts sat down in front of each painting and said, "this one is worth so much," "this one is worth four million reales". Il Spasmo di Sicilia or Christ falling on his way to Calvary was the most expensive one, "four hundred thousand reales". Las Meninas, from four million to four hundred thousand, The Family of Charles IV, this one was a true bargain, I recall it was priced at sixty thousand reales. The four hundred thousand reales of Las Meninas, now let's not go mad, or the modest price tag for Il Spasmo di Sicilia. This was not the only time a price tag was allocated to the paintings in the Museum. They are appraised every time they travel, but some of them never travel, and there are even rumours that they were appraised in order to sell them to buy weapons during the Civil War. They were just rumours, but there was a publication in a newspaper that said, "Why don't the people do a little bit of business? Why don't they sell a Greco or two to buy some rifles?" In other words, the idea was out there, it really didn't matter who got the weapons, the whole idea was an outrage. The four hundred thousand reales for Las Meninas sounds hilarious to me.