Voces del Prado

The Beginning of a Great Friendship

Rafael Alonso Alonso, Restorer, 1978-2016

At that time, the Restoration Workshop was located on the second floor above the Goya Entrance. It was there that we had our workshop set up, with ample space and a pleasant environment for working. However, I was working in the halls located close to the Carlos V roundabout in a temporary workshop, where they have now hung the Titian works and Venetian paintings. A painting by Zurbarán had arrived from the Fine Arts Museum of Seville, The Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinus, and I was restoring it in that temporary workshop, and John Brealey was astonished at the quality of the painting. He often sat and contemplated my work, whilst I was standing on the scaffold, because it was a very large painting and I had to work with a three-level scaffold. He said things to me and Manuela Mena translated them for me. I was cleaning the painting and it had a very thick layer of shellac varnish, which was completely yellow and concealed the colours. And when he saw how the colour came out, he became quite enthusiastic and I remember that Manuela asked on his behalf, “why do you clean with such small pieces of cotton wool?” I replied that I wanted to control what I removed, but it was just to go against what he did, because he’d cleaned Las Meninas with some very large pieces. It was a different way of approaching the cleaning process. However, we began to communicate better.
I’m not a conflictive person; I don’t tend to have arguments. If I’m not interested in something, I just go and that’s it. He made more of an effort to establish a good relationship than me and we ended up being great friends. He was very generous with me and he recognised the value of my work. He’s one of the people who has spoken mostly highly about my work outside the Museum.