Voces del Prado

The Prado Travels to the Hermitage

Gabriele Finaldi, Assistant Director of Conservation and Research, 2002-2015

At one point the Spanish Government proposed that we take part in the Russia-Spain Year. We talked directly to Mikhail Piotrovsky, the Director of the Hermitage, in order to discuss an exchange of exhibitions between the Hermitage and the Prado. In the beginning the exchange was going to take place in the summer months, but at some point the Hermitage called us and said: “No, the exhibition must be held in February at the Hermitage, because that is when the king and queen will be coming to inaugurate it”. But in February the temperatures in Saint Petersburg can fall as low as -30º and -40º below zero. We had spoken about the summer precisely to avoid this problem. But they told us there was no way of changing the dates; it had to take place at that time. So we sent our specialists to Russia to work alongside the specialists at the Hermitage in order to ensure the appropriate environmental conditions to be able to stage the exhibition there, in the great hall overlooking the Neva River, which at the time was completely solid, frozen over. And we achieved our goal.
Our relationship with some colleagues was curious because we were working with a designer from the Hermitage who refused to speak Spanish. He had worked for many years in Cuba and he gave us the impression that he understood everything we said; but he completely refused to speak a word of Spanish. We felt a certain degree of reticence on the part of the Design Department at the Hermitage, but we were able to reach an agreement about how to stage the exhibition, which was essentially the way they wanted to stage it. In this manner we were able to present “The Treasures of the Prado Museum” in the splendid setting of the Hermitage. This joint exhibition was held first at the Hermitage. The Russians take a little time to trust others, which must be something to do with their history. The exhibition was held over there first, so we brought over a number of very important works from our collection, since we wanted to present the best Prado possible at the Hermitage, that great museum of the eighteenth century. We have an excellent personal relationship with Piotrovsky and with the curator who worked with us, called Sviatoslav Savvateev. And thanks to the fact that we staged the exhibition over there first, they were able to witness our friendly and generous disposition towards them. Thanks to this, the exhibition that was presented at the Prado on the Hermitage was also quite extraordinary, encompassing everything from the gold of the Scythian peoples to the Russian paintings of the twentieth century. It was an absolutely marvellous exhibition in every sense of the term: at an artistic level, in terms of institutional collaboration, in terms of diplomatic collaboration between the two States … and I think the public also knew how to make the most of it. A huge number of people turned up and some came several times to see the exhibition at the Prado.
At the Hermitage a number of people approached both Miguel Zugaza and myself to tell us that: “I never thought I would ever see these works by Goya or Velázquez at the Hermitage, and you have brought them here”. Some of them said this we tears of happiness in their eyes, full of gratitude to the Museo del Prado.