Madrid's Prado Museum renames 'dwarf' paintings in accordance with new disability law
11 January 2024, 18:16 | Updated: 11 January 2024, 18:18
Madrid's Prado Museum is renaming its 'dwarf' paintings to comply with Spain's disability laws.
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The country's principal art gallery is currently undertaking the task of removing the controversial term from many of its painting titles and descriptions including artwork by Velázquez and Herman.
It comes after new legislation is set to come into force in Spain next week, removing the word "disabled" from the constitution, and to be replaced with "people with disabilities".
The museum is also removing terms like "deformed" from around 27,000 descriptions on its website in accordance with the changes.
A further 1,800 signs on exhibited works will also be altered to eliminate terms deemed offensive.
"We have a duty to be exemplary as a key institution,” an official from the Prado Museum told The Times.
They said the political consensus deemed that it was necessary to change the descriptions.
"We have decided to revisit, with a sharper criterion, signs that we did not see anything odd about when they were written, but that now we find are out of step with the times."
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Velázquez's seminal oil painting The Boy from Vallecas was one of the first descriptions to be changed. The 1638 artwork depicts Francisco Lezcano, a man from the Basque Country.
The sign on the previous painting read: “In addition to dwarfism, he suffered from ‘cretinism with oligophrenia." It now states: “In addition to dwarfism, he suffered from ‘cretinism with oligophrenia’… .”
It now amends the word "dwarfism" to read "achondroplasia" - the condition which restricts growth.
The description also now reads "one of Velázquez’s portraits", having previously said "one of Velázquez’s portraits of dwarfs”.
Other amended paintings include Prince Felipe and the Dwarf and Miguel Soplillo and Portrait of a Dwarf.
Prado said it would not however change paintings deemed "historical", for example, The Faggot, Auntie Gila, by Goya.
Reporting on the changes, Spain's El País newspaper said: “The term dwarf and its derivatives are an example of the complexity of the task that the Prado faces.”
