The Arc of Justice: Spanish artwork seized by Franco regime returned to rightful owners

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/spanish-artwork-seized-by-franco-regime-returned-to-rightful-owners

Spanish artwork seized by Franco regime returned to rightful owners

Spain’s culture ministry has returned the first of more than 5,000 items taken by the dictator 84 years ago

Sam Jones in Madrid
Sun 15 Dec 2024 08.48 EST

Spain’s culture ministry has begun to fulfil its promise to return more than 5,000 works of art that were taken by the Franco regime after restoring a painting seized by the dictatorship 84 years ago to its rightful owners.

In June, the ministry published an online list of more than 5,126 items plundered by the regime – including paintings, sculptures, jewellery, furniture and religious ornaments – to help people reclaim their family property almost a century after it was taken for safekeeping after the outbreak of the civil war.

Most of the pieces on the list were originally gathered and put into protective storage by the Republican government after Franco’s military coup in July 1936 triggered the Spanish civil war. But when the war ended with Franco’s victory in April 1939, many of the pieces were seized and scattered among different museums, collections and institutions.

Earlier this week, the first of the looted works was finally returned to its owners during a ceremony at the National Library of Spain. The piece – a painting of the Spanish educator and philosopher Francisco Giner de los Ríos as a boy – was confiscated in 1940 when the dictatorship outlawed the pioneering and influential Free Institution of Education that Giner de los Ríos had co-founded. It was then stored in the national library.

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