Sijena: What's true and what's false about the murals' "trips" to New York and London?

Is a half-truth a lie? Let's take an example. The Sijena murals were transferred to New York in 1970. That said, this is true. However, at no point was it the entire complex , not even the main section that presides over the mural arrangement, but rather adjacent fragments measuring 377.5 x 70 centimeters with images of Jesus, Eliezer, Jorim, and Simeon. So, when Jorge Azcón claimed that the murals had traveled three times to New York and once to London, it was only a half-truth. He said it to justify the claim that there is no risk involved in moving the Sijena murals to their original location. If this move could be done in the 20th century, Azcón pointed out, "it's common sense that in the 21st century it will be done in compliance with safety measures."

At the MNAC, they are convinced that a half-truth is as dangerous as, or more dangerous than, a lie. Yesterday, they issued a statement describing the journeys the fragments of the Sijena murals have taken since they were first exhibited in 1961 until they were placed in their current location in 1995. "Since their installation in the Montjuïc Palace in 1961, the collection of paintings from the Chapter House of the Monastery of Santa María de Sijena has never left the museum," they point out emphatically.

The statement asserts that the current location, created after the completion of the museum's works in 1995 , "isolated, without any walls or direct openings to the outside, and treated to achieve particularly stable air quality and climatic conditions, is ideal for the conservation of the paintings, the most fragile in our Romanesque collection."

For the museum, the alleged transfers of Sijena's magnum opus are "specific and anecdotal" and involve only "small fragments." According to the MNAC, these transfers took place in years when the concept of "preventive conservation" did not yet exist, and it makes no sense to use the bad practices of that time to justify repeating them 50 years later.

Thus, the facts show that between 1970 and 1997, a series of loans were made for various exhibitions, not only in New York but also in Valencia, Girona, and London . In 1970, a fragment of an intrados depicting Er, Jesus, Eliezer, Jorim, and Simeon traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to participate in the exhibition "The Year 1200."

Fourteen years later, in 1984, the Hayward Gallery in London also featured the intrados, as well as the double arch with plant motifs, for the exhibition 'The English Romanesque from 1066 to 1200' . In 1988, two intrados with images of Salathiel, Zerubbabel, Enos and Seth traveled to the Girona City History Museum for the exhibition 'The Age of the Cathedrals'.

Finally, Valencia hosted the two fragments seen in Girona in the exhibition "Around James I. From Romanesque to Gothic Art." In addition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York once again hosted two intrados, the smallest measuring 80 x 70 cm. In total, six fragments were on loan from five cities.

According to the MNAC, it wasn't until the late 1990s that the international museum community established that collection management should be based on risk assessment , implementing the necessary protocols to establish the conditions for loaning works. In this sense, the MNAC is the first museum in Spain to include professionals dedicated to risk prevention within its team of curators.

Another point to consider when considering a possible transfer of the Sijena murals is that 45 percent of the flat surface of the arches and 25 percent of the intrados are reintegrations. That is, when the remains of the mural were recovered from the 1936 fire, what remained was not a complete work, but loose fragments. The MNAC team, led by Josep Gudiol , carried out these reintegrations to give coherence and meaning to the preserved images. In other words, the originals are joined to recreations on plaster stucco with grisaille-style paint. The process was long, from 1940 to 1950, using a technique that has been repeated in the reconstruction of Mantegna's frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel in Parma. And these reconstructions, in the MNAC's opinion, also deserve their conservation and care.

Another half-truth used to assert the lack of risk during the move is that the MNAC technicians acknowledged that the move was possible in 2016 before the Huesca Court of First Instance . In reality, they testified that it was not impossible, accepting that they could not confirm with certainty that the pieces would deteriorate if they were moved from the MNAC's ground floor.

In that judgment, Gian Luigi Colalucci , restorer of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, had already recommended "extreme prudence and caution." Simona Sajeva , president of the International Scientific Committee on Mural Painting, stated in her report that: "It must be taken into account that the paintings have never been subject to a transport operation similar to that which would have occurred when traveling to Sijena. Only small portions of the paintings have been loaned. These have always been small portions on plywood, mostly intrados, which guarantee a continuous, uniform, and rigid surface for the paintings."

The Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Josep Rull, visited the murals yesterday and later met with Pepe Serra, director of the museum, and Joan Oliveras, president of the board of trustees, to assess the "extraordinary risk" that a future relocation would pose to the works. "There can be no different criteria for Sijena and the Lady of Elche," he stated, after asserting that the priority was not "ownership, but preservation."