Catalan Museum Has Yet to Follow Through on Court Order to Return Contested Murals to Aragon Monastery
Spain’s National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) has not yet complied with a May 2025 Supreme Court ruling ordering it to return the contested 13th-century Sijena Monastery murals to the Royal Monastery in Aragon, nearly a year after the decision. The murals were removed in 1936 after the monastery was set on fire during the Spanish Civil War, later restored by MNAC, transferred to canvas, and displayed in Barcelona since 1961, with missing sections reconstructed using pre-fire photographs. MNAC has cited “technical arguments,” warning that transport and relocation to a non–climate-controlled environment could further damage the fragile works, which are currently kept in a sealed section of the museum’s Oval Hall. The murals depict Old and New Testament scenes and a genealogy of Christ, and show stylistic influences from English miniature painting and Byzantine art.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in New Museums, Old Wounds: Restitution and Rehangs