Inside the Prado Museum’s Painting Restoration Workshop | Goya & More

                    <p>The restoration workshop at the <a href="https://www.museodelprado.es/" target="_blank">Prado Museum</a> in Madrid is bathed in September light. It’s 11 a.m. on a Friday, and sunlight streams through the windows overlooking the cloister and surrounding buildings. Within this seemingly suspended space, a team works diligently to preserve and revitalize the museum’s paintings. The quiet is broken only by hushed conversations. It feels like intruding on a meticulous, precise process – a glimpse behind the scenes of art history.</p><p>We spoke with María Moraleda (born in Toledo, 1988), who has been part of the museum’s team since 2020. She recently completed the restoration of Francisco Goya’s <em>Las mozas del cántaro</em> (The Milkmaids). Standing before the painting, she explained that it’s a tapestry cartoon – one of the last series Goya created as a tapestry painter. “Although they’re called cartoons, they aren’t actually made of cardboard. They’re oil paintings on canvas. They got that name because originally they *were* painted on cardboard or paper, serving as models for the final tapestry. Therefore, these weren’t intended to be seen as finished works. That also explains the painting’s material history – it was stored and somewhat forgotten for many years at the Royal Tapestry Factory and then in the cellars of the Royal Palace, until it was rediscovered in the late 19th century, brought to the Prado, and received its first restoration. Restorations age, too, and criteria have been refined and improved over time,” the specialist explained.</p><blockquote>“Each time we are more respectful of the work, and the varnishes yellow and oxidize,” the restorer pointed out.</blockquote><p>Moraleda’s words felt intrinsically linked to her work on the painting. Each explanation was delivered with rigor and nuance. “Each time we are more respectful of the work, and the varnishes yellow and oxidize. That means the communication of what the painter wanted to convey to the viewer is lost,” she said. </p><p>To restore that communication, Moraleda’s work on <em>Las mozas del cántaro</em> focused on cleaning the yellowed, oxidized varnishes that flattened the composition. She also removed some later additions that covered damage. Viewed through the lens of her explanations, the painting takes on a compelling power. “You can see how it gains in luminosity and depth. That yellow-brown veil makes all the elements of the composition appear on the same plane. Now, however, we see how the figure of the main woman – the one being courted, the protagonist – lifts her hip, moves forward, and becomes the central figure. That wasn’t clear before. The three figures were seen almost on the same plane, with equal prominence. Then, the entire escape of the landscape, with those somewhat unreal landscapes and the very blocky architecture Goya uses – he repeats this technique. He’s not so interested in describing a precise location or vegetation, but in creating these escapes, these spaces. All these inclined planes are also very typical of Goya.”</p><blockquote>“I started studying Chemical Engineering. I completed the first year, but I already had the restoration bug,” Moraleda recalled.</blockquote><p>We shifted away from the details of her recently completed restoration, and the nuances of her work on a Goya masterpiece, to discuss the origins of her passion. “It started through a painting teacher who gave me private lessons. She was very young and had to decide what she wanted to study. I was very good at math and science, but I also had an artistic sensibility. I really liked to paint and draw. And I think she was the one who saw that this combination was very appropriate for restoration, and she suggested I study it. My family wasn’t thrilled with the idea, though. My father wanted me to study a ‘strong’ career, one with good job prospects – science, architecture… And, in fact, I started studying Chemical Engineering. I completed the first year, but I already had the restoration bug.”</p><p>That early passion led her to train at the School of Restoration and Conservation in Madrid and later to earn a degree in Art History from the Complutense University. During her final year at the School of Restoration, she visited the Prado’s restoration workshop for the first time, where she later had the opportunity to train during a final-year internship and then with a two-year scholarship. “I owe everything I am as a restorer to that experience and to the restorers who were here then. Some are still active, others have retired, but I especially appreciate the great generosity they showed in sharing their experience and expertise. The excellence the Prado has achieved in the field of restoration is undoubtedly thanks to them. And, well, I hope to live up to that standard.”</p><h2>Antoni Peris, Giampietrino, Veronese, and Goya</h2><p>As she reflected on her career as a restorer, several works came to mind. Regarding <em>Nuestra Señora de Gracia y los grandes maestres de Montesa</em>, a work by Antoni Peris from the early 15th century, she remembers it being a very complex restoration. “It was a very manipulated, very repainted work. We had to use 3D technology to recover the image.”</p><p>She spoke with particular emphasis about the restoration of a panel of <em>Saint Catherine</em> by Giampietrino, an Italian painter and student of Leonardo da Vinci. The background of the painting had been entirely repainted blue. Thanks to technical studies and research by art historians, they discovered another background underneath. “The decision was made, and it was wonderful to gradually uncover that background, which is magnificent. It’s a reddish background, very powerful, and of excellent pictorial quality. The figure was also very altered, the hair repainted. It was a work with quite a bit of damage, but the recovery was incredible.”</p><blockquote>“What part of the work’s material history is important to preserve, and what isn’t?” the restorer asked.</blockquote><p>Finally, she mentioned the recent restoration of <em>The Dispute of Christ Before the Doctors</em> by Veronese, in which she participated with her colleague Eva Martínez. The painting had an addition in the upper part. “It was restored in the late 90s, and it was already known to be an addition, but at the time it was decided not to remove it. Now, in a monographic exhibition, where the goal was to recover the strength of the Venetian painter, that addition detracted from Veronese’s composition.” The restorer raised a question that underlies the collective process by which decisions are made during a restoration: “What part of the work’s material history is important to preserve, and what isn’t? Always, if it detracts from the vision of the work, the composition, that communication with the viewer, then perhaps it should be removed.”</p><p>As noon approached, we concluded the visit by touring the workshop and pausing to contemplate works that will soon be unveiled after restoration. María Moraleda reminded us of the essential principles of restoration: it must be compatible with the original materials and reversible. She also emphasized the collaborative nature of the restoration process. Earlier, she alluded to the possibility of reaching the core of the process: “Perhaps in another era, one wouldn’t delve so deeply into the fundamental question. I think now we’ve been given the opportunity to thoroughly investigate what each intervention requires and how far we can go.” She also pointed out the unique nature of each job: “Each work is unique and has its own needs.” The Goya painting she recently restored will soon travel to Brussels to be exhibited at the Europalia biennial festival.</p>

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