This past week has seen me traveling across Castile, Spain, with Daphne Barbour, senior conservator of objects at the National Gallery of Art. Our mission was to investigate the sculptural techniques of Alonso Berruguete, the subject of a forthcoming exhibition that I am curating for the Gallery for the fall of 2019. We enjoyed an especially revelatory day at the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, where we had the opportunity to de-install a selection of Berruguete’s greatest sculptures and examine them under ideal conditions. His method of assembling his figures was fascinating. Unlike most Spanish sculptors of his generation, he seem to have been unconcerned with trying to carve his figures from as few blocks of wood as possible in a neat, careful manner. His sculptures (like the Abraham and Isaac above) are pieced together in an almost jury-rigged way, as though he was working out aspects of composition as he carved, unwilling to be constrained by the material. This must have something to do with his background as a painter, as the approach is highly pictorial. It also supports my contention that Berruguete received his training as a sculptor late in life—that he was not exposed to the traditional methods of wood-carving at an early age. As a consequence, they were not engrained in him. When he decided to branch into sculpture later in life, he felt free to adopt them to his aesthetic needs, then premised on painting. Still, as tends to happen on these trips, more questions were raised than answered. To be continued over the months ahead, and more trips to wonderful Spain. Thanks to Daphne for guiding my looking this week and the many important insights into Berruguete's technique.