Voces del Prado

Unusual Cases Regarding the Prado Disperso III: At an Auction in London

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

One day, looking at the auctions in the United Kingdom, in London, we noticed a still-life by Bartolomé Montalvo, a Segovian painter of the late 18th century and early 19th century, which was being sold at auction. We informed the police once again and they discovered the following: the Museum of Modern Art had deposited this work at the Escuela Normal de Magisterio (Teacher Training College) in Cordova, a building that had been pulled down. The Head of the College had told the employees: “take whatever you like, because we’re going to pull the building down”. A cleaning lady had taken the work home. After a time, the family contacted an antique-dealer in Malaga or Torremolinos, who was English, which is why the picture ended up at an auction in England. What happened in the end? Well, it was all very simple: because of international laws and because they didn’t want any problems, they returned the work directly and now we have it here in the Museum’s collection.