National Art Museum cites 'technical impossibility' of transferring Sixena mural paintings

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

The decision comes after a decisive meeting on Monday morning regarding the future of the medieval artworks.

A written statement reads that it is difficult to comply with the Supreme Court ruling "in the time set by the law."

The museum has submitted a technical report that expresses the "impossibility" of restoring the frescoes to the chapter house room of the monastery without endangering the pieces. However, the board has also stated their "willingness" to obey the ruling and called local authorities and Aragonese to set up a technical committee with experts to analyze the transfer of the paintings.

The meeting of the 'patronal,' the museum's managers, featuring the Catalan and Spanish governments, and members of the City Council, as well as several personalities and private entities, finished almost an hour after starting at 9:30 am.

The text also invites the Aragonese government to join the committee with the experts they "consider adequate." These Aragonese experts would work side-by-side with experts from the MNAC and the public institutions such as the Spanish culture ministry, the Catalan government, and the Barcelona city council.

The managers' meeting took place over two weeks, 19 days, after Spain's Supreme Court ruled to force the return of the Sixena medieval paintings from Barcelona's museum to the Monastery of Vilanova de Sixena, in Aragon.

Many international experts and MNAC workers have said that moving the artworks could damage them.

The board praised the work the MNAC has been performing during the last years to protect and take care of the paintings "after being rescued by Josep Gudiol in 1936," after being "heavily damaged" due to a fire amid the Spanish Civil War.

Aragon open to working with MNAC

The President of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, has expressed his willingness to cooperate with MNAC on the transfer of the Sixena murals but warned that Aragon will not accept being "deceived."

Azcón stressed that, from a technical standpoint, the operation is feasible and that the priority must be complying with the Supreme Court ruling.

Azcón pointed out that the challenges involved in moving the murals were already known. Therefore, he expects that the administrations will not attempt to "delay" the transfer.

"We’re ready to work together, but we won’t let ourselves be taken for fools," he stressed.

He also called for the working group being formed to have a clear objective from the outset: to carry out the court's ruling and ensure the paintings are returned to the Monastery of Vilanova de Sixena as soon as possible.

Azcón made it clear that Aragon does not want the creation of a working group to serve as an excuse for "indefinitely prolonging" the handover of the frescoes.

For that reason, he said one of the first things Aragon will demand is a timeline to ensure that both the Catalan and Spanish administrations are committed to the return of the murals to Aragon without delay.

Azcón reiterated his readiness to cooperate with the museum's board, provided that all decisions taken are aligned with fulfilling the Supreme Court ruling, which acknowledges that the paintings "can be transferred, albeit with some difficulty."

Artworks preservation

Many public institutions have raised their concerns regarding the transfer of the artworks from the MNAC to Aragon due to their fragility and the risk of damage. Some include the Catalan Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Sciences and Arts of Barcelona.

On a similar side, the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, as well as the Spanish culture minister, Ernest Urtasun, have also positioned themselves on taking care of the different artworks but also to obey the Supreme ruling.

The court's decision upholds a 2016 court ruling that ordered the paintings to be returned to their original place, putting an end to an eleven-year-long litigation process.

The murals in question date back to the 13th century and are considered singular pieces of the Romanesque era.

According to the court, MNAC was never the owner of the works, and only had them in its possession, meaning that the court case doesn’t expire.

The president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, has demanded the "unconditional return" of the Sixena murals from Catalonia.

The Aragonese president insisted that the transfer be carried out "as soon as possible," but added that it was obvious that it "won't happen in just one day."

MNAC frescos

The mural paintings in question are from the Chapter House of Sixena and date back to the year 1200.

They are a “unique, most important example of medieval Hispanic art,” according to the MNAC, and depict scenes from the Old and the New Testament, including scenes of God showing Paradise to Adam and Eve, and the Resurrection of Christ.

Origin of the conflict

The dispute over the frescos stems from a 1995 decision by the Vatican to transfer 111 parishes, one of which was the one in Sixena, to the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón in Aragon that until then had been part of the diocese of Lleida in Western Catalonia.  Later in the 90s, the artworks were purchased by the Catalan government.

But the Vatican’s decision triggered legal disputes over the works of art, and this prompted the government in Aragon to bring the matter before the court in 2014.

44 pieces of art had originally been at the Museum of Lleida, but were removed by force by Spanish military police in 2017, after Catalonia had refused to give them up despite a court order.

At the time, Mireia Boya from the Catalan far-left party CUP called the removal an attempt “to humiliate Catalonia.”

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.