Jordi Ibáñez The story of a new mineral and an old pigment In the pretty village of Castell-estaó, in the municipal district of Capdella in the Fosca valley (Pallars Jussà), there is a small abandoned uranium mine called Eureka, where you can find good selection of very rare mineral types. Have you ever heard of…
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Ruth Bagan In September the city of Turin was the venue for the international congress of the IIC (International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works), one of the most important institutions in the field of the preservation of the cultural heritage. The congress has been held every two years since 1961, and on…
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Àngels Comella i Jordi Camps A crowned Child Jesus about to get down from his mother’s lap is the feature that characterizes a Romanesque image that entered the museum in 1920, after the Museums Board had purchased it from the antiques dealer Josep Valenciano. It is a polychrome hardwood carving, with a very interesting conception…
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Àlex Masalles Among the white marble sculptures in the Dome Hall of the Museu Nacional, there is, to the left of the door to the restaurant, a work in bronze with a dark patina mounted on a base of Montjuïc stone. It is an allegorical representation of the city of Barcelona by the sculptor Eusebi…
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Joan Pey Have you ever seen these four carved stone sculptural bases from the middle third of the 12th century? They belong to the Monastery of Ripoll and are on permanent loan in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, exhibited in the Romanesque Art galleries. It has been possible to reunite a lion’s head, which…
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Mireia Mestre The properties of gold, the bright yellow colour, the ductility and the fact of it being immutable, have been ideal, not just for minting coinage, but also for its use in the arts of every civilization. It has always been a rare, precious, material, reserved for worship, associated with eternity and divine power,…
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Mireia Campuzano, Núria Pedragosa and Carme Ramells For the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ramon Casas, celebrated last year, here is what the studies carried out with infrared reflectography reveal to us about different paintings by the artist conserved in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Reflectography shows that Casas sometimes approached the composition…
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Vicenç Martí & Carles Pongiluppi In the exhibition Gaudí. Barcelona 1900, held in Florianópolis (Brazil) from 25th August until 30th October 2016, travelling afterwards to Sao Paolo, around fifty works were sent from the collection of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, from paintings on canvas of different formats, to plaster and bronze sculptures, including…
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Àlex Masalles Last July we announced that the crowd-funding campaign “Save The Violinist” had concluded successfully. It was set up by the Friends of the Museum to raise the necessary funds to pay for the cost of the complex conservation-restoration work required by Pau Gargallo’s The Violinist. Thanks to the contributions of over 250 patrons,…
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Pablo Gargallo’s sculpture The Violinist is suffering serious deterioration due to the incompatibility of the materials with which it is made: a wood armature covered with lead. For this reason, the Friends of the Museu Nacional have started a crowdfunding campaign Lets Save theViolinist. Conservator Àlex Masalles explains the details of the sculpture, the study…
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