The Ministry of Culture returns to the city of Brihuega a number of works seized throughout the Civil War | Culture | EUROtoday

This Thursday, the Ministry of Culture returned a set of works seized throughout the Civil War to Brihuega, a small city of simply over 3,000 inhabitants in Guadalajara. These are three large-format sculptures and a fraction of a sarcophagus, all relationship between the final quarter of the fifteenth century and the start of the sixteenth century. “We recover these pieces for the neighbors, so that they can be empowered by their heritage and their history,” stated the mayor, Luis Manuel Viejo, within the Archive of the Brihuega History Museum, the place the restitution ceremony was held, chaired by Minister Ernest Urtasun. In addition, he additionally took the chance to ship a Renaissance processional cross dated across the yr 1560, the work of Juan Francisco Faraz, belonging to the bishopric of Sigüenza-Guadalajara.

The three sculptures – a recumbent alabaster statue, a tombstone with the recumbent determine of the archpriest of Talamanca and a praying determine of Don Juan de Molina – and the sarcophagus fragment with an emblazoned defend belong to the church buildings of San Miguel, San Felipe and the monastery of Santa Ana. They have been all within the National Archaeological Museum, however till now their origin was unknown. They left the city of La Mancha in 1938, when the then Republican mayor Daniel Centenera handed them over to the Delegate Board for Seizure, Protection and Salvage of the Artistic Treasure, with the intention of defending them from the results of the battle. Like so many others, they weren’t returned to their homeowners after the battle.

The cross, which belongs to the parish of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de El Casar, was delivered in 1938 to the General Directorate of Treasures and Insurance, which at the moment relied on the Ministry of Finance, and ended up within the deposits of the General Fund for War Damage Reparations, a company created to defray the bills of the battle. At the tip of the battle, the Artistic Recovery Service, in command of the returns of seized property, organized public exhibitions of the varied property to permit claims for the property, however the cross was by no means claimed and was lastly deposited within the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the place it had remained till now.

“This act of restitution is more than an expression of our responsibility and our duty as a Government; it is an act of reparation and tribute to those who, in very difficult times, kept the flame of culture and the safeguarding of our heritage burning,” stated Urtasun after signing the City Council’s honor ebook. His ministry took the primary huge step on the lengthy highway in direction of the return of seized creative works, in mid-2024. Urtasun introduced a list, which now exceeds 7,000 works – work, jewellery, ceramics, sculpture, followers or vessels – which, in response to an inside investigation, come primarily from seizures made by the Republic throughout the Civil War.

From this analysis, which incorporates the 16 state museums and which has lately added new findings within the National Museum of Performing Arts of Almagro and the Magalia Palace, 11 works have been returned to this point. There are 5 of them this Thursday, 5 different work returned final yr to the descendants of the Republican mayor of Madrid, Pedro Rico – plus two others that the Prado Museum additionally returned to the rightful homeowners on the identical day – and yet one more that was delivered to the Francisco Giner de los Ríos Foundation in December 2024.

The dedication of the Ministry that Urtasun has renewed at the moment is to “continue adding new restorative processes”, in what the minister has outlined as “an authentic exercise of memory and justice.” All inside the framework of the Democratic Memory Law, one of many initiatives most defended by the Government of Spain. From now on, the works might be visited of their locations of origin, within the Brihuega History Museum and within the Diocesan Museum of El Casar. There are a couple of extra restitution requests, however the course of requires complicated, lengthy and tedious identification and tracing work. In the palms of the Ministry there are nonetheless greater than 7,000 items awaiting their return dwelling.