The Court of First Instance number 2 of Huesca received last Monday the petition to stop the transfer of the Sijena paintings exposed in the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC) and this Friday has received two more from the Government of Aragon and the City Council of Villanueva de Sijena to accelerate it, through the forced execution. All the pressure on the case again falls on the roof of the head of the court that sentenced in 2016 that the old and delicate murals of the thirteenth century had to be restored to the monastery of Sijena, in a ruling validated first by the Huesca hearing first and by the Supreme Court later.
The Aragon Government takes that new step after rotating the expert commission created last week in the MNAC and once the Barcelona Museum will urge the judge for its “technical disability” to move the paintings without damaging them. In response, the executive of Jorge Azcón has submitted a letter in which it includes a report on the viability of the transfer and conditions of the Chapter Room of the Monastery of Sijena and a schedule on the works to be carried out, which would take a time of about seven months. It also asks the MNAC to close the rooms where the claimed goods are exhibited so that their technicians can access with the means they consider necessary.
The work plan exposed by Aragon includes several phases of prior documentation and procedure trials; Drafting of disassembly, packaging and transfer projects; tenders of the services; and execution of disassembly, packaging and transfer projects. In that road map of the works there is an added pressure: the Aragonese government claims 5,000 euros per day of fine in case of non -compliance with the milestones set in the schedule. In addition, there is a possible crime of disobedience by the director of the museum, Pepe Serra, and the president of his Board of Trustees, Joan Oliveras.
It is also considered that to guarantee the conservation and safety of the works it is necessary to access both the paintings and their current exhibition assembly system and all the linked documentation. Access to environmental conditions and ability to carry out a photogrammetric survey is also requested, which means photographing in detail the MNAC stays to know in detail the current topography of each of its components.
With all the requests he has received so far, the judge will have to reach conclusions, which will also open a period of allegations. The question is not simple, although the Supreme Court’s judgment is firm. Carlos Padrós, Professor of Administrative Law of the Autònoma University of Barcelona, considers that there is still room to decide on the future of Sijena’s paintings, considering that the current sentence only settled on the property of the good, but not on its protection. In his opinion, the melon of the contentious-administrative route could be opened, to determine the future of a protected good. He even says, the Ministry of Culture could “expropriate the right of execution” by considering that it is a national good. Both the Generalitat and the central government have maintained a sepulchral silence about the sentence, beyond stating that they would comply with it.