The Zaragoza museum declined to pay 6,000 pesetas for the Sijena paintings.

He introduced himself to me and made me a proposition. The paintings could be given, for example, to the Zaragoza Museum, but the cost of the work remaining to complete the restoration amounted to around 6,000 pesetas (1943 price), which would have to be paid, in addition to the Museum having the consent of the nuns of Sijena, who should probably be compensated. I conveyed the proposal to my good friend José Galiay, then director of the Zaragoza Museum, but he was frightened by the financial commitment it entailed and declined the offer. This paragraph is part of the memoirs of the historian Luis Monreal y Tejada and narrates how the architect Josep Maria Gudiol, responsible for removing the paintings from the Sijena Monastery after it was burned by anarchist groups in 1936, tried to have them handed over to Aragon at the end of the war.

No one had noticed this detail until a reader alerted this newspaper.

Neither the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC) nor the Generalitat have used this argument in the dispute that the governments of Aragon and Catalonia have been engaged in since 2014 over the possession of the paintings, which entered the MNAC in 1940 and were installed, in a reproduction of the original room, in 1961.

A controversial Supreme Court ruling on May 28 obliges the MNAC to return the paintings—a masterpiece from the year 1200, declared a Site of Cultural Interest—and makes it responsible for their transport and their integrity until they reach their destination.

The Catalan institution has expressed strong opposition, citing the irreparable risk that the return trip could pose, as it is a place that does not meet the standards of a museum like the MNAC.

But let's return to Monreal's memoirs. At the end of the Civil War, he was appointed regional commissioner of the National Artistic Heritage for Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands, and was charged with restoring works of art seized by the Republican government or looted in the chaos of the war. Gudiol therefore approached him to propose their return to Aragon. The monastery was destroyed.

Zaragoza City Council ignored the museum's request for help in acquiring the paintings.

In his memoirs, published in 1999 by the small Huesca publishing house La Val de Onsera, he explains that Gudiol “removed the layer of sinopias using the usual method, gluing some canvases onto the wall surface and peeling them off. These were taken to the Barcelona workshop, and the work was interrupted without completing the final phase of gluing the canvases again, this time from the back, and removing the ones from the front that had hidden the paintings during this entire transfer. But the war ended, and Gudiol left for North America, from where he returned two or three years later.”

It was then that Gudiol made him this proposal: the cost of completing the restoration was 6,000 pesetas.

Monreal's account is incorrect regarding the date, because this newspaper has been able to verify that the board of trustees of the Zaragoza Museum did indeed discuss a proposal "from the commissioner of artistic restoration" regarding "the mural paintings in the Chapter House of the Monastery of Sijena," but that was in 1941. The session took place on January 26.

The record, transcribed in the annals consulted by La Vanguardia in 2003, states that the paintings were “removed by the Reds after the fire.”

"The price, not the sale price but rather the cost of the work of placing the paintings on special stretchers, securing them, and the subsequent operations, amounts to around thirty thousand pesetas," estimates the museum's board of trustees, who consider the acquisition "of great interest to the Museum."

The complete installation of the paintings cost 30,000 pesetas, but the institution's campaign only raised 20,000: the Aragon bank gave "no response."

To Monreal's cost, Galiay's project added the mounting of the paintings on stretchers that recreated the architectural structure. The proposal "was accepted, and the Directorate was instructed to study and implement a means of raising the necessary funds. Mr. Calamita, rector of the University, announced that he would contribute 1,000 pesetas from his own funds."

Was 6,000 pesetas a lot in 1941? The museum's budget for that year was exactly 20,650.

Well, six months later, the regular session of July 6, 1941, proved devastating. The museum only managed to raise 20,000 pesetas.

The MNAC, seeing that we don't have that project or don't believe in the project presented by the Government of Aragon, is hiding behind that." Jorge Español, Lawyer from Sijena

“In order to raise funds,” the museum says, “it was agreed to circulate some letters to corporations and banking institutions, asking them to contribute some amount to the subscription that was opened for this purpose, reading out some responses and the offers and gifts, as well as the donations received to date, which total around twenty thousand pesetas.”

José Galiay, director of the museum mentioned by Monreal, complains that "along with the Mayor's refusal was the silence of the Bank of Aragón, which remained silent, despite being the company where the Board of Trustees deposits its funds."

At the same meeting, the governing board decided to stop working with Banco de Aragón and open an account at the Caja General de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Zaragoza.

The original record is currently inaccessible due to renovations at the museum, which will take two to three years, according to sources at the institution.

Meanwhile, the MNAC is analyzing the current state of the paintings, which have been mounted on artificial structures for six decades. An elevator currently serves visitors to the room dedicated to Sijena.

The institution's director, Pepe Serra, is preparing a package of reports to be drafted by its own technicians and international experts, including Simona Sajeva, president of the International Scientific Committee on Mural Painting of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), one of the world's leading experts on the subject.

The lawyer representing Sijena in the litigation, Jorge Español, accused the MNAC yesterday on Radio Huesca of wanting to delay compliance with the ruling, despite acknowledging that the monastery is not a museum and that "it must become a de facto museum," where there must be "curators and experts" to keep the works of art in perfect condition. "The MNAC, seeing that we don't have that project or not believing in the project presented by the Government of Aragon, is hiding behind that... basically, what they're saying isn't so much that 'they can't be moved,' but that the paintings are better off in Barcelona than in Sijena; it's a fallacious argument," he said yesterday.