The Prado Museum lost 885 works of art

MADRID. The Audit Court of Spain conducted a check in one of the world’s largest art museums in the world - the Prado (Museo Nacional del Prado) and discovered the loss of 885 exhibits.

The number of works of art that could have disappeared could be even greater, but between 2008 and 2012, the Madrid Museum discovered 41 exhibits. Then, this was explained by a temporary confusion caused by the redistribution of part of the collection between Prado himself and the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art. Twelve works of art are still “on deposit at various institutions,” according to the 2012 report.

Two years ago, an inventory of historical and artistic objects belonging to the Prado showed a total of 27,509 objects in the museum’s collection. A significant part of them are engravings and drawings (15,480), followed by sculptures and objects of decorative and applied art (4,408), and only then are paintings broken down in classification for historical periods.

Spokesperson Prado asked not to exaggerate the fact of the global loss of precious exhibits from the museum, saying that most of them were lost during the wars and fires. In the 1980s, Prado discovered about 350 lost works of art. Ten years later, an inventory showed that more than 500 jobs had already been lost. But, without sufficient evidence of their destruction, museum keepers cannot remove them from stocks.

A significant part of the lost works may be part of the Trinidad museum collection, which was created from art objects obtained as a result of the expropriation of property of the Catholic Church in 1835-1837. When Trinidad and Prado combined their collections in 1872, some exhibits may have been lost.

However, the explanations of the Prado representatives could not be convinced by the audit court, in which they insisted on the need to search for works and strengthen control over all works of art transferred on a deposit basis from the museum to various art centers.

The monitoring agency also indicated that the lack of a periodic report on the state of the collection greatly complicates the control, the implementation of which is already extremely difficult due to the huge number of exhibits and the museum’s close cooperation with other organizations.

The audit court also drew attention to the “lack of sufficient human resources” necessary to manage the collection.

Despite all the criticism, the court also noted that most of the work disappeared so long ago that no one can be held accountable. However, all materials of the audit were handed over to the prosecutor, with the aim of the possible establishment of criminal liability.

In 2012, Prado participated in 15 national exhibitions and sent 176 works to other art centers. The museum also took part in 33 foreign shows, allocating 288 works of art as a loan. In addition, the Prado Itinerante Traveling Exhibition was organized, in which 164 works participated.

An action plan has now been developed for 2013-2016, which sets out measures to verify the work on deposit in several Spanish regions, and assess their condition, as well as security measures. This will entail an analysis of 1,500 works in 130 institutions. Also, the Prado funds will be photographed and entered into a computer application specially designed to manage the collection.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru