Voces del Prado

Two projects from Diego Angulo

Juan Luna Fernández, Head of the Department of Conservation of 18th Century Painting, 1969-2016

My name’s Juan Luna: my full name’s actually a bit longer but this is the one I use for my books, lectures and classes. I started to collaborate with the Museo del Prado in 1969 as the Museum’s director, Diego Angulo Íñiguez, who had been one of my university professors, suggested that I did my mini-thesis on a type of painting closely related to ones in the collection of the Museo del Prado. I completed and presented this mini-thesis, after which Diego Angulo asked me to undertake a doctoral thesis, which took me ten years. The thesis was on 17th- and 18th-century French painting in Spain, what’s here now and what was here in the past, as a lot has been lost over time. As there wasn’t a lot of material, they told me that I could cover both centuries. Good job there wasn’t much! I had to travel for the thesis and also get to know the holdings of the Museo del Prado as a fundamental part of the thesis was in its collections. I went to France a lot. I spent time in the department of paintings at the Musée du Louvre. I also went to a lot of other European museums. Meanwhile the Prado, where I spent hours and hours, was gradually changing.