From Cincinnati to Madrid: An International Adventure for the Tafts (and Me!)

On a sunny morning in early September, I climbed aboard a 42-foot box truck. My coworkers had already loaded the Taft Museum of Art’s portraits of Charles and Anna Taft into the back of the truck for the paintings’ first-ever journey outside Cincinnati, Ohio. My travel companions (as I began to think of the portraits) and I were bound for Madrid, Spain, where they would appear in the first-ever monographic exhibition devoted to their painter, Raimundo de Madrazo. 

First, two truckers, a sweet couple, drove us from the Taft Museum of Art to Chicago, Illinois, specifically to one of O’Hare International Airport’s many air cargo warehouses. I rendezvoused with two retired police officers turned art logistics experts, both named Jim. Donning a fluorescent yellow safety vest, I watched as warehouse workers carefully unloaded Charles and Anna, safely ensconced inside wooden crates, from the truck onto the busy warehouse floor. Then, a gorgeous Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd mix thoroughly sniffed both crates on behalf of the Transportation Security Administration.

With no nefarious odors detected, warehouse workers moved Charles and Anna’s crates onto a huge metal pallet. The Jims and I checked to ensure that the other items on the pallet did not contain food, plants, animals, flammable chemicals, or anything else that might pose a hazard to artwork. After that, the warehouse workers wrapped the entire pallet and its contents in plastic and netting. With Charles and Anna ready to board their freight plane, I proceeded to my own commercial flight. 

Once in beautiful Madrid, I met back up with Charles and Anna’s portraits at the exhibition venue, the Fundación MAPFRE. The gallery once formed part of a luxurious palace constructed in the 1880s for the Duchess of Medina de las Torres, a magnificent setting that seemed to suit the Tafts quite well. The portraits join one hundred other paintings by Raimundo de Madrazo, sent by sixty lenders, including the Museo Nacional del Prado, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Musée d’Orsay.

A Spanish crew unpacked the paintings from their crates and placed them on foam blocks against the gallery wall. As Charles’s portrait emerged from its crate, I heard someone gasp in awe. Among those gathered to oversee the installation were the exhibition’s independent curator, Amaya Alzaga, and Fundación MAPFRE’s cultural director Nadia Arroyo, exhibitions coordinator Mónica Fuentes Santos, and registrar Virginia Cañas. Alzaga later explained to me that because Madrazo painted primarily women, the exhibition team was especially excited to see his portrait of Charles Taft. 

I meticulously checked the condition of both portraits, inspecting the surface of the canvas with a flashlight as well as the wooden frames for any concerning issues, such as fresh damage that the artworks might have sustained during travel. Luckily, I did not find anything worrying, so the crew proceeded to hang the paintings on the wall.

With Charles and Anna securely installed in the gallery, my work was done. I said “hasta luego” to the paintings and set out solo to discover Madrid’s enchanting sights and delicious cuisine.