On May 28, the Supreme Court issued a ruling: the murals with which an unknown painter covered the walls of the chapter house of the monastery of Santa María de Sijena around the year 1200, and which have been in Barcelona since 1936, had to return to their place of origin. The judgment became final after a legal battle lasting more than a decade between the Government of Aragon and the Town Hall of Villanueva de Sijena, on the one hand, and the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC) and the Generalitat, on the other. Six months later, the case is still pending. Since then, the president of the Court of Instruction 2 of Huesca has led another battle: understanding the complexity of restitution while managing the arrival of the authorities (to which she must respond) and enormous documentation; the last, 2.5 gigabytes of files that the MNAC sent him on Tuesday in response to a request from the government of Aragon.
The museum is determined to stop the restitution due to the fragility of the ancient paintings and is immersed in a beautiful balancing act: the institutional silence of its patrons (Generalitat, Ministry of Culture and Barcelona City Hall) while its workers wage a technical battle in which they have not obtained much support from the administrations. On December 18, the board of directors will meet (ordinary, the end-of-year meeting) and the Sijena schism will not go unnoticed. In Aragon, on the other hand, unity exists in the essentials: the remains of the wall paintings removed by Josep Gudiol in the middle of the civil war from a monastery devastated by the flames must be returned.
Six months after the judgment, three fundamental questions remain unanswered.
When
This is the most awaited decision, because there will be no possibility of going back. Even if they have less and less, the management of the MNAC still hopes that the answer will never be, given that it has defended not having the technical capacity to carry out these works without damaging the paintings. In an order, the judge recently indicated her intention to “effectively comply” with the decision. The Government of Aragon and the museum presented their proposed timetables to carry out the transfer. The first considers that seven months may be enough and the second speaks of a minimum of a year and a half, even if his process was closed before completing all the analyzes of the tables.
The Villanueva de Sijena City Council has not yet presented its proposal, which it is in the process of finalizing. His lawyer, Jorge Español, is very careful and wants to avoid hasty schedules to preserve the paintings, kept in a state of great fragility due to the urgent start of the work in 1936 and the effects of the flames that burned the convent.
A report from the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain (IPCE), as the MNAC requested directly from the Ministry of Culture without an effective response, could call into question the transfer if its technicians approve the rest of the reports which warn of the extreme fragility of the paintings and the risk of their transport. The judge ruled out requesting this document. In previous cases such as that of Guernica or that of The Lady of Elche, which did not give rise to prosecution, this cultural organization had recommended against the transfer of works, in a conclusion always respected. On December 18, it is possible that this request will again come directly from the board of directors of the MNAC, of which the Secretary of State for Culture, Jordi Martí, is a member.
As
MNAC technicians actively and passively stated that they did not have the technical capacity to carry out the transfer without causing further damage to the remains of the Romanesque wall paintings. The general director of Culture of Aragon, Pedro Olloqui, defended the possibility of moving them without risks, and the Minister of Culture, Tomasa Hernández, even declared in a press conference four months ago: “That they could suffer damage, possible or hypothetical? We will repair it.” All the reports that the judge has in her hands speak of the need to carry out a risk assessment linked to the transfer, as established by approved international guidelines. These reports threaten to further extend the deadlines that the Aragonese government and the MNAC have taken into account. Neither the administration nor the museum has proposed how this could be done.
The dismantling process alone, according to what EL PAÍS published after speaking with three expert conservation technicians, would generate serious tensions in the paintings, which, according to a report filed in court, have more than 700 critical points (paint peeling, cracks, bulges) that would need to be protected before any movement. Likewise, dismantling will involve sawing more than 5,000 nails that connect the fabrics to the frames that hold them, the vibrations of which compound the dangers. The 132 square meters of paintings will have to be separated into 72 pieces resulting from the extraction using the technique of strappo carried out in 1936. In any case, it is an unprecedented operation given the damage suffered during the fire and with great uncertainty about the reaction of the murals.
Or
The sentence speaks of restitution, so the paintings must be returned to the chapter house of the Sijena monastery. The conditions are not yet contained in any known documents, a factor that must be taken into account in any relocation project. The Government of Aragon declared that it met the conditions to house the paintings, at least with regard to temperature and humidity control. One of the problems is that the paintings are now mounted on frames which, at least in the case of the arches, would not fit in their original place, so modifications would be necessary.
Español, a pioneer in the legal dispute surrounding the Sijena paintings, emphasizes that it cannot be ruled out that the paintings are moved to Aragon and kept in reserve for a certain time before being permanently installed in the chapter house.
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