Voces del Prado

The 1960’s: The First Exercises in Recovering Deposited Works

Mercedes Orihuela Maeso, Conservator of the Service of Deposits, 1975-What's on

There was one person at the time, Alfonso Pérez Sanchez, whom the Board of Trustees commissioned in the 1960’s with the task of investigating these works deposited outside the Museum. He created a series of records, although these weren’t very complete either. This task was commissioned, first of all, because the Museum of Modern Art had yet to hit us, since it wasn’t until 1971 when the overwhelming merger occurred. The documentation at the Museo del Prado was much more standardised and much simpler than that of the Modern Art Museum, which was much more chaotic. And second, it was because the Prado was organising an exhibition on Italian 17th century painting, which meant much more interest was shown in the deposited works, especially the deposits of Italian paintings, mainly in case the works would need to be recovered to form part of the exhibition or would be reincorporated into the collection at the Museo del Prado permanently. And later on, after the State Prosecutor’s inquiry, the working procedure was as I described before. And, quite frankly, after the huge effort entailed by the inquiry, everything has gone as smoothly as silk ever since.