Culture identifies more than 5,000 pieces looted during the war and the dictatorship

Culture has finally published the list of artistic pieces seized during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship and never returned. There are 5,126 objects including paintings, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics, tableware, furniture, textile pieces and liturgical ornaments. Documented by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts, they were seized by the governments of the Second Republic and the Franco regime. All of them are included in the collections of the state museums managed by Culture and come, for the most part, from seizures made by the republican government to safeguard artistic assets during the war.

Assets that were never returned to their owners by the winners of the war. Many ended up in museums, but also in universities and different public buildings and institutions. Always far from their legitimate and plundered owners for whom the possibility of recovering them now opens. Ernest Urtasun’s department hangs the medal and claims to be “the first ministry that complies with the inventory established by the Democratic Memory Law.”

Among the centers where the Culture investigation has located many of the looted pieces are the National Archaeological, Romanticism, Anthropology, America, Sorolla and Costume museums, all in Madrid. Also the González Martí National Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts, in Valencia, and the Sculpture, in Valladolid.

Pieces from the Weissberger collection that were seized from this collector and art dealer by the Court of Political Responsibilities have also been identified in the Museum of Decorative Arts. Although some works were returned to him once he was acquitted of the charges against him, pieces were still preserved and were deposited in the museum. They are the only funds identified by Culture that come from embargoes carried out by the Franco dictatorship.

Specific website

The results of the research carried out in the museums managed by Culture and the complete inventory are available on the website. Culture previously implemented this website with information on just a handful of cases that it now expands with many of the materials claimed by the victims of looting.

The website includes a digital catalog with images of the inventoried pieces and an exhaustive compilation of the regulations related to the seizure of these assets, both from the Republican and Franco governments. The Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain (IPCE) has digitized the documentation of the Madrid Delegated Board in the Republican era and of the Artistic Recovery Service, a Francoist organization in charge of returning the pieces seized after the war. Books of signatures, minutes or inventory of the Board can be downloaded on the website, which allows access to more documentation through the digital catalog known as the ‘War Archive’.

Return

“This corpus constitutes the most complete compilation published, to date, on an Administration portal and will help people interested in the subject to have orderly access to the different legislative texts on the subject,” Culture congratulates.

In the first days of the military uprising, the government of the Second Republic created the Artistic Treasure Board (JTA), an institution dedicated to protecting cultural assets from looting and bombing and storing them in safe deposits. As the rebellious troops occupied territories, the National Artistic Heritage Defense Service (SDPAN) was created which, at the end of the war, was in charge of returning the works to their owners.

The goods that were not returned ended up deposited in various institutions and museums. Research in the collections of museums and public archives has made it possible to trace the path of the pieces from their seizure until today.

The inventory is the first step on the path to the restitution of seized assets. Culture aims to “return to their legitimate owners all those assets that can be identified.” To achieve this, it requested a report from the State Attorney’s Office, received a few days ago, that gives the general criteria for proceeding with returns. Thus, those people who locate an asset they own can submit their request to the Ministry’s registry, and requests will be studied on a case-by-case basis.