Voces del Prado

Unusual Cases Regarding the Prado Disperso VII: A Painting in the Open Air

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

At Madrid’s Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country, which is housed in the Tower of Los Lujanes in the Plaza de la Villa, when we were searched for various works that were deposited there, we came across one that depicted the imprisonment of General Riego, who had been a controversial historical figure during certain periods in Spain. Whenever Riego’s hymn was heard, this went down very badly with various members of the Government. And since they weren’t interested in showing the painting, it was rolled up and placed on a terrace, which was covered like all Castilian terraces with colonnades on four sides. But it was exposed to the open air. When we visited the Society, the painting was there, but it had deteriorated and the whole of the upper section had disappeared. So all that was left of the painting by Vicente Borrás was a series of small legs with their corresponding footwear. But anyway, we have it in our storerooms as a form of historical testimony.