The lady in blue ditches the green

A survey conducted by this reporter in front of Femme en bleu (1901), one of Pablo Picasso's early masterpieces and a star of the Reina Sofía museum's permanent collection, shows that 100 percent of respondents believe this artwork to be... well, really rather green. An entire century's worth of oversights, erroneous restoration projects and incorrect varnishing all contributed to the chromatic deterioration of a painting that, ironically, is considered one of the first milestones in the Málaga artist's Blue Period.

A new and ambitious project funded by Bank of America Merrill Lynch - which has put up around 200,000 euros - will allow a select team of restorers to work on this painting full time, according to Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor, themuseum's head of restoration. The goal is to eliminate the yellowish effect of a varnish that was applied years ago, and return the original blue tones to the garments and the background surrounding the lady with the absent-minded look, whom Picasso immortalized at the tender age of 20.

"We take it down to the workshop on Tuesdays, when the Reina Sofía is closed"

"I think they're even going to identify the paint tubes that he used"

The project represents a year's worth of work for eight people and will break down into three steps: studying the painting, treating it and writing up the conclusions. Step one is already discreetly underway, as befits an artwork that is one of the Madrid gallery's biggest draws. "We take it down to the workshop on Tuesdays, when the Reina Sofía is closed to the public," says Ana Iruretagoyena, a member of the restoration team. "This is not the kind of piece that we can take away from visitors and keep inside the lab for a year."

The first task is to gauge the extent of the damage. This inspection will take four months and include state-of-the-art techniques such as X-rays, infrared reflectography, visible light photography, colorimetry and portraits with gigapixel precision, all of which are being carried out inside a room with lead-lined walls on the fourth floor of the Reina Sofía's Sabatini building.

Part of the research work will also focus on determining which exact shade of blue Picasso used for this painting; for obvious reasons, no photographic evidence exists. "We will analyze which range of blues Picasso was using at that moment in his career," says Iruretagoyena. After this, the team will be ready to work directly on the painting. The idea is for "the artwork to be gone from the permanent collection for as short a time as possible," said García Gómez-Tejedor, explaining that it will only be missing from its usual spot between March and August.

The restoration chief trusts that besides restoring Femme en bleu to its original hue, his team will also be able to fix a subtle tear on the canvas, shaped like a number seven and located around the woman's shawl. Restorers will also fix a few cracks in the lower part of the painting, thus revealing previously unknown aspects of this seminal artwork.

"This is where we enter the domain of hypotheses, but I would not rule out the possibility that Picasso did not intend to apply any kind of varnish at all. It would not be his only unvarnished work," said museum director Manuel Borja-Villel. "I think they're even going to identify the paint tubes that he used."

The process also represents a journey across a century of Spanish art. Femme en bleu has led an eventful existence ever since it was made by Picasso inside the studio he shared on Zurbano street during his brief stay in Madrid in the early 20th century. It was later shown at the National Fine Arts Exhibition of 1901, where it received lukewarm reviews from the critics. The canvas remained in storage for decades in a state-owned warehouse, chiefly due to Picasso's own lack of interest, since he never bothered to come round to pick it up. There it languished until the 1950s, when the great art historian Enrique Lafuente Ferrari discovered, in the upper right-hand corner of the canvas, the shaky signature of a young Pablo Picasso (who still signed his full name, not just his surname, as he did later in life).

Restorers are unsure when the yellow-tinged varnish was applied. What they do know is that it was done with the best of intentions, following the work's discovery. They also know that at the time of application, Femme en bleu was already a distinguished piece in the collection of the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (MEAC). "When it aged, the varnish became yellowish," says Iruretagoyena. And everyone knows that yellow combined with blue yields the kind of washed-out green that now features prominently on the painting.

The idea to request funding for the project from Bank of America Merrill Lynch through its recently created Art Conservation program came from the Reina Sofía's restoration chief. The choice of artworks seemed logical. "It met the requirements of being a very well-known piece, which had not undergone an in-depth restoration for decades," says García Gómez-Tejedor. Or as one visitor to the Reina Sofía put it: "They had to do something sooner or later: either make it blue again or change the painting's name."