Spanish culture minister orders return of disputed artworks

Direct rule of Catalonia from Madrid continues to have consequences. Spain’s Minister of Culture, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, has ordered the Catalan culture department to return 44 contested Romanesque artworks currently in Lleida Museum to Aragon. With the imposition of direct rule through Article 155, the minister is provisionally in charge of cultural matters in Catalonia.

The artworks are part of a larger collection of more than a thousand items removed from the Sixena monastery during the Civil War and taken to Catalonia. They were taken during the early days of the conflict, when monasteries and other Catholic buildings where being destroyed, in order to be protected. In the 90s, the Catalan government formally bought them. After years of complaints, Spanish judges last year ordered that the artworks be returned, declaring the sale void. While the Catalan authorities gave back some smaller pieces, they decided that the remaining 44 artworks must stay in Lleida due to their fragility.

However, on November 15, a judge in Huesca upheld a request by the Sixena local authority and ruled that the artworks must be returned, leading to Méndez de Vigo’s decision on Tuesday. The Spanish culture minister said that the Spanish government “complies with court rulings.” However, Madrid forbid Catalan legal services from appealing the court decision, something that was still an option and could have prevented the transfer of the fragile artworks.