The penitent behind the gathering

The penitent behind the gathering

Nuclear technology applied to art makes it possible to verify the authenticity and antiquity of the works, as well as to carry out their best conservation and restoration. But it also leaves us with anecdotes and curiosities worth mentioning. The person in charge of Conservation and Restoration of the Reina Sofía shared with us the curiosity discovered after the technical study of the work that José Gutiérrez Solana painted in 1920, La tertulia del café de Pombo. In that study they detected problems with the varnishes of the work, because Solana "works by adding many layers." "They are overlays of many colors with many shades that make them very black paintings." Upon entering it, they saw that "below there was another composition because there were strokes that did not correspond to the brushstrokes on the surface."


"What was under the work was a penitent on her knees before an altar," reveals Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor, who highlights the fact that she is behind a painting full of "atheist" intellectuals. Gómez-Tejedor joined the Museum as a restorer in 1992 and since 2003 he has been the head of the department of an institution that today is a benchmark in the world of contemporary art and has "the largest restoration team".
 

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