Other blogs in this series have discussed the removal and dispersal of four ceilings and other architectural elements from the palace of Torrijos.
This begs the question, did the Spanish state try to stop these sales? The short answer is yes, though the process was complex, and shows the ways in which legal regulation of markets – in this case the art market – can be slow to respond. This sluggishness should not be understood as inaction or disinterest.
From the middle of the 19th century, all governments in Spain – under the royal family, the Republics, and the dictatorship – passed legislation attempting to prohibit the sale or exploitation of heritage sites and objects. These included archaeological parks, buildings, architectural components, or ‘movable goods’ including paintings, textiles, ironwork, and sculpture.
The political situation in the first half of the 20th century in Spain was complex. The nation transitioned from the rule of Alfonso XIII (r. 1902-1931), which included a period of dictatorship under Miguel Primo de Rivera from 1923-1930; to republican rule under the Second Republic (1931-1939); then, following a brutal civil war from 1936 to 1939, to the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, which lasted until his death in 1975.
Each of these governments passed legislation attempting to regulate the trade in Spanish antiquities. However, the most sweeping reform came during the Second Republic, under the leadership of the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, Marcelino Domingo y Sanjuán (in office April-December 1931), and the provisional head of the Second Republic, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres (in office April-October 1931, and subsequently President from 10 December 1931 to 7 April 1936). In ratifying the Decree of 3 June 1931, the government of the Second Republic expanded the number of protected national monuments overnight from 362 to 1117, a dramatic increase of 209%.
The first law to safeguard a National Artistic Treasure (Tesoro Artístico Nacional), was passed on 28 August 1844, and identified the 13th-century Cathedral of León (illustrated above) – considered a masterpiece of Gothic architecture – as a protected monument. From then until the end of 1975, no year saw as many sites added to the list of protected sites as 1931. In the 1970s, as Franco’s death inaugurated the transition from dictatorship back to constitutional monarchy, these National Artistic Treasures became the backbone of today’s ‘immovable assets of cultural interest’ (inmuebles de Bien(es) de Interés Cultural), or BIC(s).
In the Decree of 3 June 1931, the national government of Spain recognised the local parish church of Torrijos, the Colegiata del Santísimo Sacramento, as a National Artistic Treasure, giving the monument a protected status which definitively prohibited its sale and/or export.
Only three monuments in Torrijos have been protected by the state: the Colegiata; the Franciscan Convent (Convento de las Reverendas Madres Concepcionistas Franciscanas), housed in the mid-14th-century palace of Pedro I, which was added to the list of BICs in 1981; and the Chapel and Hospital (Capilla del Santísimo Cristo de la Sangre y del Hospital) added in 1985.
As discussed in an earlier blog, the palace of Torrijos had fallen into disrepair by the beginning of the 20th century and was demolished by 1917. Pieces of the palaces were sold, bought, and transported all over the world. Yet fifteen years later the situation in Torrijos had changed significantly, as shown by the addition of the Colegiata to the list of national monuments for the province of Toledo in 1931. Comparing the fate of the palace of Torrijos with that of the same town’s main church gives us access to critical moments in which the government of Spain shifted from passive acceptor and, at times, collaborator in the pillaging of cultural monuments, to a disruptor of looting and protector of national heritage.
The Colegiata was constructed between 1509 and 1518, under the patronage of Teresa Enríquez (d.1529), widow of Gutierre de Cárdenas, who had acquired Torrijos in 1481 and made it the capital of his estate. While other blogs here have addressed the international market for Spanish antiquities, particularly the palace’s four ceilings, the focus here is the development of a national, legal framework under the Second Republic (1931-1939) which undergirds the current system of cultural heritage protection in the nation of Spain.
Situating Spain’s current approach to preserving cultural heritage sites requires understanding the legacy of the Decree of 3 June 1931. Published in the Gaceta de Madrid (an official periodic publication from 1697 until 1936 which relayed important legislative actions to the people), on 4 June 1931, the Decree of 3 June relating to National Artistic Treasures contains two articles. The first article is by far the longer, consisting of more than four pages in which provinces, organised alphabetically, proposed 755 new sites to be recognised as protected by the government. The second article consists of six lines stating that properties, including gardens and palaces, formally belonging to the Crown, will receive official state protection as well.
It is difficult to speak of a coherent national policy regarding historic monuments in Spain prior to 1931. The main process for identifying and protecting national sites remained virtually unchanged from 1844 to 1975. Provinces would nominate a site to be protected, and the government would respond. Most measures taken to designate a National Artistic Treasure identify only one or two sites. It is unusual to encounter a decree that protects more than two sites, let alone over 750. However, ascertaining any type of consistent motivation across provinces as they nominated sites to be protected is difficult, with the exception of four pieces of legislation: one in 1912, in which the province of Badajoz advocated for 19 sites to be added to the list of BICs, in a grouping titled ‘the Antiquities of Mérida’; one in 1921, in which Toledo named 16 sites; one in 1922, where Granada submitted 13 sites; and a final measure in 1924, when several provinces protected sites with ‘cave paintings’.
It is therefore helpful to situate the Decree of 3 June 1931 in the larger framework of Spanish cultural heritage at the beginning of the 20th century. This was a time marked by rampant mercenary transactions of Spanish and international antiquities dealers, which denuded Spain of artistic and architectural treasures. Notable examples beyond those from Torrijos already mentioned include a 14th-century cupola from the Alhambra now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, Germany, and the 12th-century Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Óvila, which has been largely reconstructed as the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California (though some stones can be found in the botanical garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco).
Though the Gaceta de Madrid published several orders relating to cultural patrimony between 1910 and 1920, this never resulted in a clear national plan or strategy for the identification, preservation, or restoration of monuments. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that understandings of what constitutes protection, preservation, and restoration have fluctuated drastically over the past century.
The first piece of legislation relating to excavations and antiquities in Spain was passed on 7 July 1911. In this law, the government defined terms like ‘excavation’ and ‘antiquities’ and charged the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts to create an inventory of “monumental ruins and antiquities used in modern buildings”. In addition, this measure sought to address issues of monetary valuation and compensation for antiquities. While the law did provide a framework for archaeological work to be conducted, documented, and for a financial value to be placed upon it, it offered little information as to what would be protected, how it was to be identified, or who would do the identifying.
The next significant Decree was issued by the government on 1 March 1912, and consisted of 46 articles in two chapters. The length and detail of the measure suggests that a host of legal issues arose from the previous law (passed on 7 July 1911), particularly in relation to clarifying what qualified as an antiquity or archaeological site, and how to resolve and further clarify issues of compensation. What exactly compensation means is unclear, though this new law dealt with who would be the recipient of any financial remuneration related to the sale of either the site or anything from the site. This was the most comprehensive and dominant law relating to the identification and protection of sites: a sort of handbook to ‘what counts.’ A significant difference between the 1 March 1912 law and that of 7 July 1911, is that while the earlier decree only counted sites relating to ‘Prehistory, Antiquity, and the Middle Ages’, the 1912 law included all sites up until the time of King Carlos I (r. 1516–1556, also Charles V Holy Roman Emperor r. 1519-1556), increasing eligible sites and objects.
Both legal measures focused on issues of compensation, ownership, and rights to sell. The foregrounding of financial issues in both the 1911 and 1912 laws speaks to cultural heritage as a business enterprise in the early decades of the 20th century. Together, the cultural patrimony laws of 1911 and 1912 focused on establishing ownership and the right to oversight and financial remuneration.
In a piece of legislation dating to 4 March 1915, municipalities, provinces, and the State were given the right to interfere and nullify the sale of elements from dismantled sites, unless the building in question was destined to be rebuilt within the nation of Spain. Crucially, if no protest was made by local or national authorities, the owner, be that an individual or an entity like the Catholic church, was awarded the right to sell after a waiting period of three months. This created a situation in which sellers, dealers, and buyers often went to extreme measures to keep the sales of artefacts secret. In addition, this law also addressed concerns of upkeep, restoration, and financial management of National Artistic Treasures.
The 1920s and 1930s saw a power-struggle between sellers, dealers, buyers, the Catholic Church, and the government, as the Spanish state identified and defined priorities in protecting national culture. One source base that provides particularly rich information as to the way these laws were received by the Catholic Church in Spain is letters between antiquities dealers and their buyers. Those between the media mogul W.R. Hearst (1863-1951), his architect, Julia Morgan (1872-1957), and their dealers, Mildred Stapley Byne (1875-1941) and Arthur Byne (1883-1935), freely discuss the challenges of buying and exporting Spanish art and artefacts.
Many have written about Hearst’s rapacious appetite for ‘Spanish stones’ as he sought to build his architectural magnum opus at San Simeon, on the coast of north-west California. A recent article by Spanish scholar María José Martínez Ruiz details not only the international demand for Spanish ceilings, but focuses particularly on Hearst’s attempts to buy ceilings for this project.
Generally, scholars have used the letters and telegrams exchanged between Hearst, Morgan and the Bynes to focus on details of the purchase and transfer of Spanish cultural property to California – but this correspondence also provides a unique glimpse into the legalities of the right to own and sell the cultural heritage of Spain. The correspondents frequently mention problems that the dealer encountered while attempting to buy, sell, and export pieces. The two telegrams illustrated here are representative of dozens of others.
In a telegram dated 16 May 1930, Byne bemoans new difficulties in securing permission from the Spanish state to sell choir stalls offered to him by an unnamed Spanish Bishop. Byne acerbically notes that under Primo de Rivera, the Spanish government has made “a determined effort to curb the sale of art objects”. While lacking the means to enforce legislation, Byne notes that the government has acted to involve the Vatican to prohibit Bishops from selling church holdings.
“Since the new government (following the Dictatorship) has come into power there has been a determined effort to curb the sale of art objects by the Spanish Bishops of the Church. The State is not powerful enough to enforce this law directly but is doing it indirectly through the Vatican. This has aroused the ire of the Bishops as they claim they are free to sell what they please. Unfortunately all of the Bishops are not of the same opinion, so that in certain cases it is difficult to know just where one stands concerning projected purchases.
“I mention this, for instance, in regard to the Gothic choir stalls. It is possible, in as much as permission for the sale of these stalls must come from Rome, that some hitch may develop. If so I don’t wish you to accuse me of traffic[k]ing with someone else as in the case of the Wooden Ceiling over the Refectory at Alcantara. My loyalty to my friends and clients is too well known to be questioned.
“Incidentally speaking of choirstalls one of the finest Gothic sets in all Spain, known to me for years but never regarded as a possibility, has just been brought to my attention by a visiting Bishop – one of those old time Spanish Bishops who doesn’t hesitate to tell the Government and the Vatican to go to thunder. If I can manipulate this set I will ship it out of the country immediately and send it to you.”
In a second telegram dated 5 November 1930, Byne laments the “terrific howl” the Spanish state has caused regarding the sale by the Archbishop of Burgos of “one of the most important ‘Romanesque’ portals in Spain”. Interestingly, given the previous telegram from May, it appears that the archbishop is not only countermanding the laws of the Spanish state, but also those of the Vatican.
“This portal has been carefully taken down and each stone well boxed. Though it was sold by the order of the Cardinal Archbishop of Burgos and his receipt for the sale given, the Spanish State has raised a terrific howl over the matter, for which reason a certain amount of caution must be exercised in the sale.
“A museum is the natural resting place for a work of this importance and it was my intention to wait a year or so until the present storm blows over and then submit it (museums give such publicity to every purchase that they often get themselves into no end of trouble). If you can see your way to use this portal, I don’t suggest San Simeon, but any museum project you may have, it offers an opportunity. No more like it will come out of Europe.”
Together, these telegrams hint at the complexity of both the market for antiquities and its regulation immediately before the passing of the Decree of 3 June 1931. Though these are only two examples, the Byne-Hearst correspondence in 1930 attests to increasing regulation by the Spanish state and the Catholic Church in transferring monumental architecture outside of the nation of Spain. By 1931, the legislation of the Second Republic effectively established administrative oversight over the export of cultural heritage. While this legislation drew on work done by commissions, individuals, and the members of the Royal Academies of History and Fine Arts of San Fernando who had committed substantial time and effort to identifying sites to be protected from previous administrations, the achievement is staggering.
This is important because the removal of the wooden ceilings of Torrijos speaks to a specific cultural moment prior to governmental advocacy and regulation in the removal of Spanish antiquities. What was normal in 1917, when the palace was finally demolished, was taboo by 1931. In this period, successive administrations enacted legislation that attempted to stem the tide of the exportation of cultural heritage, with varied success. Despite holding distinctly different views on the ways in which the nation of Spain should be governed, administrations of both the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and that of the Second Republic demonstrated remarkable continuity over approaches to preserving national monuments. While these decades witnessed the removal of huge quantities of historical artefacts and buildings, they must also be credited with significant legal activism in trying to protect this endangered culture.
