This statue is Madrid’s tribute to the figure of this great writer, following a municipal agreement of the Permanent Commission of August 3, 1978, and at the proposal of City Councillor Horcajo a year earlier. Its initial location was meant to be in the vicinity of the Cuesta de Moyano, so familiar to the writer on his walks; hence, the original idea was to place it in the gardens of this road at the intersection with the Paseo del Prado and then with Calle de Alfonso XII. It was eventually located in the Retiro Park and at the end of the Paseo del Uruguay or the Paseo del Duque de Fernán Núñez, next to the Puerta del Ángel Caido. In 1997, a project was set in motion to move the statue to the centre of the Alfonso XII traffic island, as the Madrid City Council never agreed with its current location. Fortunately, the remodelling project of the Recoletos-Prado point of convergence and the consequent pedestrianisation of Calle Claudio Moyano enabled it to be located at the top of this popular booksellers slope in 2007, thus fulfilling the monument’s original target location.

© Vicente Tofiño