Voces del Prado

Working as a joiner and restitching canvases

José Manso Gómez, Textile and Panel Painting Conservator, 1953-1992

I've done many things at the Prado Museum. There are many works of mine there. I worked in the carpentry department, restoring furniture. For instance the armchairs they had at the Museum, fine things they were, which had been brought from Parliament when it was being refurbished. They brought the armchairs from Parliament and we restored them for the Museum. I'm not sure if any of them are out in the halls. They were made of mahogany.
Pedestals for the sculptures. There is a wooden sculpture that is quite high, which I fastened with a stand to which I attached a rattle, to make sure nobody threw it away.
I also got help from the restoring team. Among these were Tomás Pérez Alférez and Pablo López Valdiavero. Pablo is the one who restitched The Family of Charles IV. I helped him out a bit with that one. He said he would teach me, and teach me he did. Then I did a good deal of restitching canvases on my own. I did quite a few. I'm not sure about the number but I figure I must have restitched around forty canvases in the Museum.
When you do this type of work, you really don't know how it's ended up until you see it the day after, because when you're in the midst of the process you realize that things can go wrong. And the next day, when you see that everything is all right, it's a relief, but never before then. When the work required two days it was even worse.