At last. More than 80 years have passed, war, exile, dictatorship, oblivion, three generations, as many legal reports, a long investigation, an inventory and a few bureaucratic obstacles. But the grandchildren of Pedro Rico, the Republican mayor of Madrid in the 1930s, will recover five oil paintings that were seized on June 9, 1938, during the Civil War, from their grandfather’s Madrid home and never returned by the Franco regime once the war was over. The Councilor for Culture of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Guacimara Medina Pérez, signed the resolution last Tuesday that authorizes the return home of the works, kept for decades in the Casa Colón, the main museum of the archipelago, as EL PAÍS has been able to confirm. This Thursday the family received the notification. All that remains is to find a date for the ceremony of delivery to the descendants.
The five canvases are Majas giving a gift to a pole vaulter, Bull charging a group y May Crossby Eugenio Lucas Velazquez; Musketeers: The Sale of the Horse, by Francisco Domingo Marqués; and Fire flags, by Roberto Domingo Fallola. Rico was considered a “great lover of 19th century costumbrista art, to which these pieces from his private collection belong, signed by three well-known authors of this period,” according to a statement issued by the Museum Service of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria.
The oil paintings were among the hundreds seized by the Republic’s Board of Seizures during the Civil War in order to safeguard them. Like many others, they ended up stored in the Prado during the war. And, like many others, the dictatorship never returned them to their original owner. On the contrary, their trail was lost. Some pieces ended up in ministries, universities, museums, public offices or even in private hands. “A truly extraordinary number, a movement of works such as has never occurred in Spain,” is often summed up by Professor Arturo Colorado Castellany, one of the greatest experts in this field.
Rico’s paintings arrived in Gran Canaria in January 1942, after the then Civil Governor of Las Palmas, Plácido Álvarez Buylla, requested them from the General Commission of the National Artistic Heritage Defence Service, among some 40 pieces, to create a Museum of Fine Arts in the current Casa Palacio del Cabildo, as reconstructed in the file. Their owner, meanwhile, had sought asylum in the Mexican Embassy in Madrid, before fleeing the capital in 1936 to Valencia and then to America. His paintings have been in the Casa Colón since 1952. He, however, ended up in France and died there in exile in 1957, without seeing them again.
He also did not recover his library, personal archive or other paintings that are in the Prado, in the Museo Nacional del Romanticismo or in the Museo del Traje, and that the grandchildren, Francisca and Pedro, consider to be the property of the former mayor of Madrid. That is why, in March of last year, they began to claim them, through the lawyer Laura Sánchez Gaona. The lawyer acknowledges that nowhere did they find as much collaboration and openness as on the Canary Islands front, thanks to the drive of the director of the Museum Service, Alicia Bolaños. “Our deepest gratitude for the impeccable treatment from both the legal and human point of view. The public administration has been a pioneer in applying the Law of Democratic Memory to the return of looted works, seeking at all times solutions to speed up the procedure in attention to the age of the claimants and their long wait,” says the lawyer, on behalf of the family.
As soon as they submitted their request, a year and a half ago, the descendants were received at Casa Colón, where they were shown the works and were promised that a way would be found to return them. For Bolaños, after an internal investigation, all the necessary requirements were met: seized works, victim status, proven ownership. So she set the return in motion. When, months ago, she requested meetings with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Democratic Memory, the latter received her and “congratulated” her for the work done. In fact, the Council’s wish is for Minister Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez to be present at the delivery ceremony.
Bolaños has defined it several times as “a moral duty.” And he boasts that this is “probably the first return of seized artistic works in accordance with the Law of Democratic Memory.” Because, in October 2022, the Government approved a regulation that promised greater and more agile justice to those who were repressed. In article 3, the status of victim is extended to those who “suffered economic repression with seizures and total or partial loss of property, fines, disqualification and banishment.” And in article 31, “the right to compensation for seized property” is established, in addition to promising an audit of the “property looted during the War and the Dictatorship” within a year. Instead of multiplying the aid, however, problems and delays have skyrocketed.
To date, only the Ministry of Culture published in June, eight months late, an inventory of the 5,126 seized and unreturned pieces found in the 16 state museums under its management. Of the other government agencies, almost a year after the limit promised by law, nothing is known, at least publicly. In May of this year, the Burgos City Council returned the painting to the De la Sota y Llano family. Portrait of a lady, The Prado, meanwhile, commissioned Colorado to carry out an internal investigation that found 70 works seized during the Civil War and Franco’s regime in its collections, including two by Rico. Months ago, the museum asked Sánchez Gaona for “additional information”, as confirmed by both the lawyer and a spokesperson for the art gallery, in order to speed up the possible return to the former mayor’s family of these two pieces, which Rico’s granddaughter, Francisca, was able to visit in the centre’s warehouses. Both explain, in any case, that the initiation of a file is the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture, and the final decision is the responsibility of the State Attorney’s Office.
The repeated commitment to the victims of the dictatorship that the Executive does not stop emphasizing increases the frustration and astonishment of descendants, researchers and lawyers. And the immobility requires time and patience from heirs who have been waiting for decades and, in many cases, are already advanced in age. To get out of the impasseRico’s relatives ended up sending a letter to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. Among other things, because he was present at an event in honour of Rico, together with other victims of Francoism, in October 2023. “As long as they do not give access to all the information, it is impossible,” Colorado has denounced on several occasions. “Today we are also very happy about the hopes that are opening up regarding other pending claims from both Rico’s heirs and other victims. We believe that it serves as a precedent so that other administrations can speed up the process because quite a few years have already passed,” adds Laura Sánchez Gaona.
This newspaper has asked the 22 ministries, through the Transparency portal, if they are guarding works seized during the Civil War or the dictatorship and never returned. Half of them have answered that they are not aware of this. Some have qualified their response: the Interior Ministry claims not to have a complete database regarding the General Directorate of Police; Transport and Sustainable Mobility reports that “in most cases there is no documentary evidence of the origin” of the goods; Industry and Tourism indicates that “two works of art were returned to the family of Ramón de la Sota” and is carrying out an investigation to find out if it has more pieces with these characteristics; Justice, Presidency and Relations with the Courts deny that there are works seized in almost all of its dependent bodies, but does not respond specifically regarding Justice; Defense claims to have at least 11 paintings with these characteristics, exhibited at the Army Headquarters in Madrid. Although he cites a decree from 1963, that is, from the dictatorship, to maintain that “usucapion” has occurred, a technical term that implies the review of property in favor of the State, after years of silence from the owners.
The alleged usucapion adds another thread to so many decades of confusion. A report from the State Attorney’s Office, requested by the Ministry of Culture, suggests that the change of ownership can occur in cases where the work has been displayed in a “public, peaceful and notorious” manner. But Bolaños considers that, when the starting point of the ownership is an illicit act, such as a seizure without return, usucapion cannot occur. In addition, those who were repressed or exiled like Rico had a very difficult, or impossible, time to track down their pieces or claim them. And, even if usucapion were to proceed, the owner in this case would be the Council, which wants to return the works. For the head of Museum Services, it is a matter of respecting the Law of Democratic Memory and its spirit. So, after more than 80 years, there are only a few weeks left until the return. For the descendants, at last, it is the last wait.