Claims and restitutions of works of art: the cases of the art from La Franja and Sixena

Technicians from Feltrero, specialised in transporting works of art, working on loading some of the works from the monastery of Sixena into the truck under the surveillance of the Civil Guard.

Photo: Museum of Lleida (Jordi V. Pou)

The images from the dawn of December 11, 2017, when the Civil Guard broke into the Museum of Lleida will remain very much alive, for years, in the memory of many. Outside, under the cold and insistent rain, citizens demonstrated and were beaten up by Mossos d'Esquadra. The violence involved in the police force incursion into a museum institution to confiscate works of art under court order had never occurred before, as far as we know, in the entire history of worldwide museology, at least under the same conditions in which the litigation for the works of the monastery of Sixena took place.

Less traumatic, but equally painful, was the departure from the same museum in Lleida, in March 2021, to the Diocesan Museum of Barbastro-Monzón, of a hundred works of art from the parishes of La Franja, many of which had been in Lleida for more than a century. This second patrimonial litigation is clearly related to the previous one and is part of a set of claim initiatives launched by the Community of Aragon that date back to the 1990s, after a series of parishes belonging to the Diocese of Lleida since medieval times were transferred to the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón, with the intention of reportedly equating the ecclesiastical limits to the administrative limits.

Why does an autonomous community in the same state launch a patrimonial claim process that affects a neighbouring community today? We are used to seeing news in the media and on social media about claims and restitution processes that take place between states that are geographically and culturally very far apart, often from different continents, against the backdrop of colonialism, plunder or armed conflicts from the past, but it is not common to find ourselves in situations like the one we have described, within the same state. This peculiar situation has caused the works of art from La Franja to be moved from the Museum of Lleida to the Diocesan Museum of Barbastro-Monzón, located just sixty kilometres away. The same thing happened with the works from the monastery of Sixena, which is also at a similar distance from the capital of Lleida. Never before has such a short distance led to an accumulation of political, identity, linguistic (yes, language is also part of this), religious and historical connotations as part of a litigation that has pitted two neighbouring communities against each other over works of art.

Where should we place this patrimonial conflict within the global context of claims and restitutions of works of art and archaeological objects that has gained such force since the 1970s? It's no easy task. First of all, we have the main cause that must occur in these types of situations, the conflict, and, above all, that a community feels offended and formally opens the dispute. There are also two basic circumstances in these confrontations: that one party claims patrimonial objects that they consider to be symbols and material samples of their national identity and that the other party, to whom history has given custody and ownership, has interests that they seek to defend and that the claimant questions.

However, at this point there is an issue that needs to be addressed. In the cases of the art from La Franja and Sixena, the Diocese of Lleida can allege certain historical rights and a legitimacy that, for example, European or American museums that keep objects from ancient Egypt or Greek and Roman cultures do not have. Because, indeed, the works of art from the parishes of La Franja, since their creation, have always been linked to the Diocese of Lleida, given that this was the diocese these churches belonged to since medieval times. Instead, they have now gone to the museum of a diocese with which they have never had any connection. It was the segregation of the Diocese of Lleida in 1995, that is, the transfer of a hundred parishes that belonged to it since medieval times to the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón, which has given apparent legitimacy to the fact that those works of art are in that museum today. This issue is very relevant, given that one of the reasons for these processes is that the objects under dispute allow the claimant to establish a direct and unequivocal link with its past which, in this case, is hindered, from the one hand, because Catalonia and Aragon belonged to the same political entity for centuries and, on the other, because those works have not been linked to an Aragonese diocese until as recently as 1995. Therefore, in the context of the conflict, the works are ideologically attributed to a territory on the basis of contemporary geopolitical criteria. One of the conclusions reached is that the claimant community and the defendant, or at least the political and religious promoters of the claim, share a different view of identity than that of the defendant, as it would be highly unlikely that two communities with a completely common and shared identity clash over an issue like this. For example, if the works of art that have been the focus of these clashes were in the Diocesan Museum of Huesca, the Museum of Zaragoza or the Museum of Teruel, would a conflict like this have emerged?

The case of the works of art of the monastery of Sixena is a little different, since the judicial and police intervention led them to return, at least, to the building where they originated. However, this return was made by stripping a public museum, which belongs to everyone (Catalans, Aragonese and Spaniards, in general), of works of art that the Generalitat de Catalunya had legitimately acquired —the ruling of the Supreme Court has finally acknowledged that there was only a formal defect— to hand them over to a religious community, that is, to a private owner, who neither lives in the monastery nor can guarantee the appropriate preventive conservation measures to preserve them. Nor has the government of Aragon, which has covered the expenses and taken care of the installation of the works taken from the National Art

Museum of Catalonia and the Museum of Lleida, been able to guarantee them. Lest we forget how not all international standards for preventive conservation were met when the works arrived at the monastery on December 11, 2017 and, on the same day, they were taken out of their packaging so that Aragonese politicians could take complementary photographs. Otherwise, the arrival of works of art to Sixena has caused two unexpected and even unnatural reactions. Firstly, the community of nuns who lived in the monastery have left because the noise made by the public, journalists and onlookers disturbed their contemplative daily life. And, secondly, the monastery has been closed for quite some time due to management problems.

In the international context, in the face of claims and restitution processes, it is common to speak of compensation for old imperialist grievances, but this would not be applicable in the case of the confrontation between the communities of Aragon and Catalonia, since they belong to the same state. Other times, when claim processes are invoked, they are seen as a way for small states to settle scores with more powerful nations. In international restitution battles, we often find small countries raising their voices through archaeological objects and works of art to combat US political supremacy, or to challenge the colonial processes of European states. It is a common case study in these conflicts, in which there is always a weak, offended, claiming nation, and a powerful nation that sees a conflict emerging. Although the confrontation between the communities of Aragon and Catalonia does not correspond to this pattern, certain parallels can be established, given that the former is one of the poorest in Spain, while the later is one of the richest. This has always been a reason for distrust and conflicting neighbourliness that have led to clear anti-Catalanism promoted by certain civil society organisations, such as the Aragonese platform No hablamos catalán or the Federation of Cultural Associations of Eastern Aragon (FACAO). Oftentimes, ideological and political postulates by these associations have found necessary support in top political figures, such as Javier Lambán, President of the Government of Aragon, who in the midst of conflict has contributed to worsening the situation with statements and tweets of obvious antiCatalan nature that have sown controversy. He will also be remembered for his 2017 Christmas speech recorded in Sixena, surrounded by the works of art he had won in the legal battle against Catalonia, in a demonstration of the strength and instrumentalisation of heritage reminiscent of ancient and medieval rhetoric, displaying the trophies stolen from the enemy following his victory on the battlefield.

Another question that we must ask ourselves is why these struggles for objects and works of art from the past have proliferated so strongly in recent years. Conflicts between East and West are very much alive and the battle for storytelling around identity and freedom is part of the widespread confrontation of cultures we experience. We are facing very different world-views and cultural perspectives. Some present themselves as the true liberators in the face of ancient invaders, who are the ones who brought about the plunder. They also show themselves as the guarantors of the identity of a given nation or culture, against oppressors who, through colonialism or systematic plunder, deprived them of national treasures that were symbols of their identity. This is why nations that saw their history taken away are struggling to recover some objects today, to reaffirm their identity and consolidate their national mythology.

What does this have to do with the art litigations of La Franja and Sixena? Regarding some issues, nothing, but others, a lot, especially those related to identities. This is where nationalism, another of the usual variables in these global processes, makes an appearance. As a result of the second Bourbon restoration, the Spanish state has suffered a severe shock following the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain. Litigations over the art from La Franja and Sixena began in the late 1990s, when the political upheaval in Catalonia had not yet erupted. However, the final phase of the judicial processes of both patrimonial conflicts has coincided with the height of the Catalonia-Spain political confrontation. We should not overlook that the incursion of the Civil Guard into the Museum of Lleida to confiscate the property of the monastery of Sixena occurred only two months after the referendum of October 1, 2017, and that the Spanish police force was able to access the museum thanks to the interlocutory order of a judge who invoked Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution in the preamble, which was then in full application in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia. Never before had this article been applied and the situation was exceptional, with the government of the Generalitat deposed. The political turmoil had long contaminated both this litigation and the works of art from La Franja, but now the situation had become unbearable and one issue was inseparable from the other, no matter how much in certain sectors of public opinion and associations in Aragon people strove to defend that these were simple patrimonial claims and that there were no political connotations behind them. Meanwhile, all the political actors of Aragon, from the entire ideological spectrum, made obvious gestures of the opposite. In Catalonia the exact same thing happened and the issue was deeply politicised. All this should not surprise anyone, given that the nationalist and identity component was very present in the basis of the Aragonese claim, and also in the opposite side which argued that these works should remain in Catalan territory.

that are usually documented globally is that the works under dispute do not have an illicit origin as a result of plunder, looting or smuggling. Nor did they reach Catalan museums as a result of illegal export, since the goods never crossed Spanish borders. We know that the vast majority of works left their places of origin through sales transactions, while others were traded or donated. In the case of the objects from La Franja, these are transactions that took place more than a century ago, in a legal and patrimonial context very different from today's and with the creation of the Diocesan Museum of Lleida (1893) in the background. In this sense, the works were acquired by Bishop Josep Meseguer to create a museum that would help to teach seminarians regarding the protection of historical and artistic heritage, in accordance with the guidelines by Pope Leo XIII. Now, however, the court rulings of the Aragonese courts that have tried the case (the final ruling of the Supreme Court is pending) have challenged these sales and declared them illegal. This is a serious precedent for all Spanish historical and artistic heritage, given that the volume of sales of religious art throughout the state until the enactment of the Republican heritage law (1933) was huge, and if the Supreme Court finally accepts this argument, it will threaten the situation of thousands of real objects preserved in public museums and private collections, which could be affected by similar claim processes.

As for the Sixena case, for which there is a Supreme Court ruling (2021), the main argument has been different. Despite the legal construction by the Aragonese party, accepted in its entirety by the Aragonese courts that have tried the case, which said that the monastery's property could not be sold because it belonged to a national monument, the high court rejected this and has clung to a formal defect, as it considers the sales transactions carried out by the Sisters Hospitallers and Catalan institutions to be illegal. It has been ruled that the prioress of the monastery of Valldoreix who signed these operations in the 1980s and 1990s was not qualified to do so, because, although she had received the powers from the community of Sixena, which had merged years before with that of Valldoreix, two small formalities, one civil and the other ecclesiastical, which entailed the legal disappearance of the old Aragonese community, had not been carried out. Therefore, when the prioress of Valldoreix signed the transactions, the community of Sixena continued to exist and was its own legal entity. The conclusion drawn from all this is devastating: more than twenty years of civil conflict and political and judicial confrontation, including the Civil Guard's incursion into the Museum of Lleida and public beatings by the Mossos d'Esquadra, due to a formal defect.

Two Civil Guard agents inside the Museum of Lleida, taking a photograph in front of some of the original works from the monastery of Sixena that they came to confiscate.

Photo: Museum of Lleida (Laia Navarra)