Aragon issues request to recover Sixena mural paintings forcefully from Catalonia

The Aragonese government, a Spanish region west of Catalonia, requested on Friday that a judge in Huesca forcefully recover the Sixena mural paintings from the Catalan National Art Museum.

The Romanesque artworks are exhibited at the MNAC museum in Barcelona and are at the center of a dispute. A one-month Supreme Court ruling forced the museum to return the frescoes to the Vilanova de Sixena Monastery, their original place. On Thursday, the time to voluntarily return the works concluded, and on Friday, the Aragonese government requested to receive the artworks as soon as possible.

The Aragonese cabinet has prepared a seven-month calendar and stated that the monastery is ideal for hosting the pieces. The executive is also urging the closure of all the MNAC exhibition halls featuring Sixena frescoes so technicians can start withdrawing the paintings.

In total, there are 35 different pieces of the Chapter House of the Monastery, and eight more from different profane paintings. Pieces are on display at the 16th and 17th exhibition halls.

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Meanwhile, Catalonia's National Art Museum has said that it is "technically impossible" to transfer the Sixena mural paintings from Barcelona to the Aragon monastery due to potential damage from breaking.

The museum submitted a technical report that expresses the "impossibility" of restoring the frescoes to the monastery's chapter house room without endangering the pieces. However, the board also stated its "willingness" to obey the ruling.

'For better or worse'

The Aragonese president, Jorge Azcón, said on Friday that his government will take care that the ruling related to the Sixena mural paintings is obeyed by "for better or worse."

He said so during a statement at the Aragonese Cortes parliament house, and that the paintings must be returned under "maximum security, as the first ones who do not want them to suffer are Aragonese citizens."

Regional authorities have also asked the judge in Huesca to set a €5,000 daily fine on MNAC if it does not follow the calendar as planned.

Civil War

All the Sixena artworks were part of a larger collection of more than a thousand items removed from the monastery during the Spanish Civil War and taken to Catalonia.

In 1936, the Sixena convent was set on fire, along with all the precious artifacts inside.

That very same year as the blaze, specialists took the art to Barcelona to safeguard and restore it. Some of the items were taken to the Lleida Museum, and others made it into the MNAC in 1940.