The young infanta without a passport
Associate Director of the Prado Gabriele Finaldi on rescuing paintings
MúzeumCafé 16.
Gabriele Finaldi was born in London in 1965. After studying in England and Italy, he gained his doctorate on the oeuvre of the Spanish Baroque painter Jusepe de Ribera at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In 1992 he was appointed curator of the National Gallery’s Collection of Late Italian and Spanish Painting. Ten years later he was invited to be the associate director of the Prado There he was involved with the museum’s extension, which finished in 2007, as well as an imposing exhibition programme and acquisition policy. The Prado’s oil painting Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour) created by Velasquez in 1656 is one of the key works of European painting – one of its admirers, Picasso, painted 58 versions. Besides the five-year-old royal offspring, smiling enigmatically in the centre, Velasquez himself and the royal couple reflected in a mirror appear on the canvas. Like the Louvre’s Mona Lisa, it can never leave the building. The large-scale Velázquez exhibition in 1990 clearly showed that the museum could hardly cope with the long queues and the half a million visitors pouring in over two months, and it was beyond dispute that, together with the extension, the ‘background services’ had to be developed. The design also involved a fundamental issue of establishing a new and larger storeroom for 3,000 pictures with a system of metal drawers which made fast search possible, not to mention that today there is no need to turn exhibition rooms into storage areas when a temporary exhibition opens. Researchers and restorers have also gained up-to-date conditions. It was natural that the extension stirred serious disputes. True, the Villanueva building of 1785 had been continuously added to, but such a large, comprehensive extension had not happened before. Disagreements began as soon as the first tender was announced in 1995. More than a thousand designs were submitted and no decision was made. That was followed by a second, short-listed round, which in the end was won by Pritzker prize architect Rafael Moneo. Moneo’s concept of mainly extending underground and adapting to the hillside did not dominate the emblematic building. His addition, known as the Moneo Cube, was made from red brick, which defines Madrid’s cityscape. Moneo filled the Prado with the freshness of the 21st century in such a way that he left his predecessors’ neo-Baroque palace as the central attraction. The new wing was organic and not overpowering. The most heated debate was caused by the neighbouring, dilapidated, disused monastery of San Jerónimo el Real. The issue developed into a court case – indignant activists for protecting listed buildings sued the cultural ministry for squandering the national heritage. During the Spanish Civil War the world’s leading museums came to the Prado’s aid – American and European museums, the Louvre, the New York Metropolitan Museum, the London National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum formed a rescue committee and speedily organised the transfer by road of seven hundred art treasures, paintings and statues to France and from there by rail to Geneva where they stayed right up to 1975. At the start of 2010 premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero presented the Order of Arts and Letters of Spain to the institutions participating in the rescue operation. More than 20 years ago working on the description of the painting Colossus attributed to Goya, chief curator Manuela Mena, a Goya specialist, began doubting its authorship. Yet the painting was regarded as extraordinary from several aspects. The picture is of outstanding significance, not only due to its creator being a founder of modern art and one of Spain’s greatest artists, but also for its theme. It depicts a fleeing population as the symbol of human suffering, with a gigantic figure symbolising Napoleon, the oppressor of the country, wading through the crowds during the Peninsular War. Four years later the suspicious Manuela removed the doubtful work from Goya exhibition. He did it quietly, since his profane theory could only be introduced with the most authentic evidence. Thus at the time the matter did not come out into the open, although when the painting was cleaned during preparatory work, Manuela’s opinion seemed to be confirmed. In 2001 the British expert, Juliet Bareau-Wilson helped with the painting’s restoration and immediately announced to the press that the picture being restored was not an authentic Goya. Sensation-hungry journalists besieged the museum and the issue aroused the disapproval of inexpert patriots as well as scholars shaken in their belief, including Fernando Checa a Goya specialist. The seriousness of the matter was shown by the fact that the official announcement was delayed for years, until early 2009. Needless to say, many people have still not accepted this viewpoint. Experts searching for counter-arguments, refer to the painting’s quality, its composition, seen as characteristic of Goya, and the figure of the Colossus, which is depicted elsewhere. Recent research has attributed the painting to Goya’s follower, Asensio Julia, whose initials in the bottom corner of the painting were revealed by the use of X-ray.