Voces del Prado

Something Untouchable

Rafael Alonso Alonso, Restorer, 1978-2016

My name is Rafael Alonso. I worked at the Restoration Workshop at the Museo del Prado for around forty years. When I joined the Museum, I already knew it because I’d visited it many times. I’d always found it interesting, ever since I was a Fine Arts student. First, I studied painting, then restoration, which meant that I spent nine years in all studying at the Faculty.
What I found most impressive was turning up at eight in the morning when the Museum was empty and the cleaning ladies were going round with their mops, which was how the hall floors were cleaned at that time, like at the roundabout of Carlos V. On the one hand, I was impressed by the loneliness of the Museum and, on the other, it was extraordinary to be there on my own in front of those works of art, which seemed distant and unattainable, given that they constituted a complete point of reference within the history of art. And, above all, the feeling you had when you entered the workshop and those very works fell into your hands. I mean, those works that you admired as something untouchable, perfect and marvellous … you now had the responsibility of working on them in order to guarantee their preservation and recover their beauty.