mutilated statues and bronze theft

Without feet, without hands, without fingers and arms. This is how some of the figures that are part of one of the most outstanding sculpture groups in the City are found today, located in an iconic site in the neighborhood of Palermo.

It is the basis of Monument to the Magna Carta and the Four Argentine Regions; better known to most as the Monument of the Spanish, at the intersection of Libertador and Sarmiento avenues. One of the most beautiful Buenos Aires postcards.

The monument has two large parts: the upper sculptures, where the “great marble lady” stands out – the figure of the Argentine Republic – and the allegories that support it. And the basement, composed of the fountain and the sculptural group of bronze, today vandalized. They are represented four regions of the countrythe Andes Mountains, the Río de la Plata, the Pampa and the Chaco.

The fountain has no water and the bronze figures are missing: feet, hands, fingers, arms. Even part of the trident that held the allegorical figure of the Río de la Plata. In the fountain you can also see missing pipes, water spouts and grates.

The deterioration is not new, but has been increasing. If a few years ago a hand was missing, now the hand and the arm are missing.

In 2019 and 2022 the monument was subjected to different restorations, That’s why its condition is surprising. The first of the works was done on the upper part, when cracks and detachments were repaired, and a comprehensive cleaning was also carried out. And in 2020 work was done on the base, with the “Sponsorship Law”.

The neighborhoods that suffer the most from this crime are those in the northern zone. Recoleta, Retiro and Palermo, where high-class buildings have -had- bronze pieces on the doors of the buildings and on the electric intercoms. But thefts are also reported in the Central Area, around Congress or on Avenida de Mayo, due to the large stock of old buildings, also with pieces of this metal in the entrances.

Another site harassed by this crime is the Chacarita Cemetery. Last month the graves of two glories of Argentine motorsports, the brothers Oscar and Juan Gálvez, were razed.

Those who remembered Juan were 21 and not one of them remained. In the Personalities Enclosure of the cemetery, the bronzes of Alfonsina Storni, Quinquela Martín, Luis Sandrini, Francisco and Julio de Caro, José Amalfitani, Roberto Goyeneche, Adolfo Pedernera, Osvaldo Pugliese and Aníbal Troilo were also stolen.

Regarding the monuments, it is clear that they are not saved either by location or importance. In fact, one of the most scandalous thefts also took place in Palermo, that of the seven bronze shields – huge – located in the Argentine Agricultural Wealth monument, in Plaza Germany. They were ripped out, over several nights in a row.

Regarding the Monument of the Spanish, a doubt also arises: What happened to the sponsorship of private companies that financed its restoration?

In 2022, the government activated the “Sponsorship Law”, which had been voted in the Buenos Aires Legislature in 2019. This law enables private companies to finance restoration work and enhancement of monuments (also, “restoration of urban environments, buildings , ornamental fountains, sculptures and all kinds of movable or immovable property of historical, artistic or cultural interest”).

The money should only be used for these tasks, it cannot be used for anything else. In exchange, companies can spread their brands or products on the protective meshes of the scaffolding. Samsung, as reported at the time, contributed $8,390,000 for the restoration of the Spanish monument.

“During 2022 and 2023, the City Government, through the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Public Space and Urban Hygiene, carried out restoration tasks of missing pieces in the Magna Carta monument; through the Sponsorship regime,” they said. from the Buenos Aires Government, and added: “Taking into account that the monument could suffer new damage and vandalism, It was decided to protect the rest of the pieces made under sponsorship.”.

In addition, they reported that they are “working on the replacement of the missing pieces, evaluating alternative materials that generate the same visual effect but that do not have economic value like bronze”.

Meanwhile, the base of the monument shows its mutilated figures, and it is also not clear what the balance of the sponsorship agreement with Samsung was, since it was not made clear whether the missing figures were earlier or later.

The monument was donated by the Spanish residents in Argentina, in honor of the Centennial of the May Revolution. In 1908 they commissioned the design to the Spanish artist Agustín Querol Subirats. He even made the sketches for the work, but died in December 1909, shortly before the foundation stone was laid, which occurred in 1910.

The work then passed into the hands of Cipriano Folgueras Doiztúa, a plastic artist, also Spanish. But like Querol Subirats, he died shortly after. Finally, the monument was completed by Antonio Moliné. These changes delayed the start of work for two years.

An Italian strike then followed. The protest took place in the quarries of the Apuan Alps, located in the Tuscany area, in the province of Massa and Carrara. That’s where the famous marble comes from.

Later another setback was added: on September 20, 1914, a storm that broke out in Buenos Aires amputated the left arm of the figure of the lady that crowns the monument.

There are two versions about how the accident occurred: the arm would have broken when the figure was not yet placed in its place, with the branch of a tree. The other story says that lightning severed that arm.

The next delay, in March 1916, involved the now vandalized figures: they are not the originals, but duplicates. The originals were lost in a shipwreck. They were traveling from Barcelona on the Príncipe de Asturias. The liner collided with a rock off Ilhabela (Brazil) and sank. 450 people died and the sculptures were lost.

Only a year later were replacements requested from Spain. The new figures took two years to arrive and then were held up in customs for an indefinite period of time. There is a gray in the story and little is known about what happened in the following years.

Only in 1926 was there an opening ceremony, which was suspended because a lighting system was missing and the surrounding sidewalk had not been built. Finally the inauguration arrived, it was on March 13, 1927.