CELEBRATING A GRADE-A CLEANING JOB IN IBERIA

This is one of the most political cities in Europe, but when Jean Daniel, the editor of the Paris news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, came here recently he found his political friends discussing something other than politics. The talk of the town, Daniel wrote, was the 17th-Century Spanish painter Diego Velazquez.

For several months now, Spaniards have been slipping into the Prado Museum to rediscover one of Spain’s great masterpieces, “Las Meninas” (“The Maids of Honor”), painted by Velazquez in 1656.

Amid great controversy, the painting was cleaned last summer, and Spaniards are finding new wonders in it.

“One of the most celebrated paintings of all time,” Daniel wrote, “was simply unknown.”

The excitement over the rediscovery of the painting has tended to make many Spaniards forget the anger and recrimination of last summer when the Prado called in a foreigner to clean the canvas, John Brealey, the 61-year-old English expert who is chief of conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Spanish specialists felt insulted and many protested. Students and teachers of the University of Madrid marched on the Prado. But the mood has changed.

“It’s very hard,” Brealey said in a recent telephone conversation. “First, they want to cut your throat. Then they turn around and want to kiss you on both cheeks. And, being English, I am just as embarrassed by that.”

Velazquez was the court painter of King Philip IV. “Las Meninas,” completed four years before his death, is probably his most famous work. The huge painting has an unusual perspective, for it depicts the Infanta Margarita, her maids of honor, two dwarfs and three other attendants in a room with Velazquez while he paints the portrait of King Philip and Queen Mariana. Only a mirrored reflection of the king and queen can be seen, for they are outside the canvas. Anyone looking at the painting is standing just where the king and queen should be standing.

“Las Meninas” is such a significant work in the history of Spanish art that Pablo Picasso paid tribute to it by painting 44 canvases in 1957 that were variations on the Velazquez work.

For many years, it has been difficult for visitors to the Prado to appreciate the full magnificence of “Las Meninas.” The varnish that was put on the painting in its last cleaning, in 1871, had become dark and discolored. On top of this, the painting was exhibited in a small, dark room. A mirror was placed on the opposite wall, the theory being that Velazquez must have used a mirror to paint the scene. By looking through the mirror in the gallery, a visitor could imagine that he was seeing the scene just as Velazquez did in the 17th Century.

“The mirror delighted the public,” Brealey said. “But it was a very simple idea. A great artist like Velazquez has to have a much more complex intellect than simply painting what he sees through a mirror.”

Citing Brealey’s worldwide reputation, Alfonso Perez Sanchez, the director of the Prado, chose the Metropolitan official for the cleaning last summer. Protests came immediately from the Ministry of Culture’s Institute of Conservation and Restoration, the Assn. of Technical Conservators of Cultural Property, and the University of Madrid’s School of Fine Arts.

Some said they were afraid that a foreign expert who did not know their painting too well would overclean it and make it too bright.

Brealey said he expected that there would be difficulty.

“You can consider it very brave or very foolhardy for the Prado to bring in a foreigner,” he said. “You cannot imagine the French calling in a foreigner to clean their greatest French painting. You cannot imagine the British calling in a foreigner to clean their greatest British painting. You cannot imagine the Italians calling in a foreigner to clean their greatest Italian painting. It was a terrible slap in the face for the Spanish restorers.”

The vehemence of the protests made Brealey’s stay in Madrid nerve-racking.

“It’s not nice to be hated or to be recognized on the street as a criminal,” he said. “It should have been one of the greatest experiences of my life, working on a truly great painting, working in paradise. But I could not help feel the animosity. It was terrifying. The only thing that astonished me is the way it turned around overnight.”

After five weeks of work, Brealey received the Spanish Medal of Fine Arts from King Juan Carlos. The cleaning was followed by some restoration of paint that was handled by the regular restoring staff of the Prado. The cleaning and restoration did not uncover anything startling, but it did turn up touches of color that had been hidden, and it brought out much of the original color. The whole scene, much of it still dark with heavy shadows, has new warmth and intensity.

When the painting was put on exhibit in a special room in the basement of the Prado, in August, there were still some grumbles. Antonio Bisquert, a painter and restorer, told the Madrid newspaper ABC that the painting had lost tones and unity because it was overcleaned and made too bright. This kind of criticism has been dismissed by Brealey as absurd because of what he calls his reputation as a conservative cleaner.

The response from most Spaniards has been far more positive. For months now, the special gallery exhibiting “Las Meninas” and a series of display cases describing the cleaning, has been crowded.

Writing in Madrid’s influential newspaper El Pais, columnist Carlos Seco Serrano, said, “I have been able to make a reverent and passionate visit to ‘Las Meninas,’ thanks to an impeccable restoration.”

The Prado, which has one of the world’s great collections of art, is itself being renovated. It will soon reopen a series of galleries devoted exclusively to the works of Velazquez. The plan is to put “Las Meninas” on a wall where it can be prominently seen even through the doors of a neighboring gallery.

There will be no mirror on the wall opposite. Clean and intense, “Las Meninas” is now considered enough of a wonder on its own.