This year, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, presided over the act of restitution of paintings that were protected during the Civil War by the Junta de Incautación y Protección del Patrimonio Historico of the Government of the Republic, which never return to the original places and which is currently housed in the Prado Museum.
Urtasuna was accompanied by Castilla-La Mancha President Emiliano García-Page and Museo Nacional del Prado director Miguel Falomir, as well as representatives of the Diocese of Sigüenza-Guadalajara.
Two works devueltas are Annunciation, coming from the Church of Our Lady of Asunción from the locality of Pareja a Christ before Pilateoriginating from the church of San Bartolomé Apóstol from the municipality of Yebes, located in a warehouse in the Prado Museum.
The completed return will allow the objects to be visited from now on in the Diocesan Museum of Ancient Art in Sigüenza.
In his speech, the Minister pointed out that “what we are doing is to return these works to those who have always been two of them”, pointing out that “it is a gesture that aims to pass with responsibilitybut also in the present, reaffirming our compromise with memory and with the rights of those who were deprived of what belonged to them”.
He further added that this act of his ministry forms part of a wider compromise as it is the fourth return that drives culture and progress and will not be the last.
Los dos bienes they are in a temporary storage situation and never formed part of the museum’s stable collection.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, visited Sigüenza this time to mark the delivery of seized art buildings in Yebes and Pareja, municipalities of the province of Guadalajara, for the Francoist dictatorship. EFE/Nacho Izquierdo
The “Annunciation” is composed of two table fragments by an anonymous author, representing the Virgin Mary as an angel, probably from a 16th-century altarpiece. This work was conceived by the Artistic Treasure Board and deposited in the Prado Museum in 1938.
“Christ before Pilatos” is a story attributed to the Master of Lupiana, dating to the 15th century and originating from the church of San Bartolomé Apóstol de Yebes.
The director of the Prado Museum indicated that this development is also “fair and honest”, which El Prado achieved from the first moment.
He also stated that the Prado Museum was a pioneer in setting up an external studio to learn about a series of works that “apparently came from a deposit” with which he created a small exhibition, and since an internal committee that follows the study of the collections.
At this point, you have “more of those works that are identified as susceptible to restitution when circumstances require it to continue.”
On the other hand, García-Page welcomed in Cultura the transfer of works and the inversion in the preservation of the heritage of Spain, which he classified as an “open-air museum” and moved the project. Prado Extendedo He will take this note to the Palacio del Infantado de Guadalajara.
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