The Prado contacts the family of the Republican mayor Pedro Rico to begin the restitution of 2 paintings

He National Prado Museum has been in contact with the family of the Republican mayor Pedro Rico to begin the process of restitution of two paintings seized by The Franco government in 1938 the former mayor of Madrid, according to the family’s lawyer, Laura Sánchez, in statements to Europa Press, and confirmed by the art gallery.

According to Sánchez, the art gallery has requested “some additional information“to the requests that the family had already submitted and thus “be able to open the corresponding restitution files,” a process she hopes will be “agile” after the news was released on Thursday, September 19 that the Museum Service of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria will return five confiscated paintings to Rico’s family.

“The works by Pedro Rico that are in the Prado Museum have been stored and are quite clear cases in which the museum itself can greatly speed up the procedure.We are very optimistic, because the Prado Museum has always been very transparent with these works by Pedro Rico and they showed us both the works and the labels on the back from the beginning. We are aware that the slowdown of the process has not been an issue that depended on the Prado Museum either.“, added Sanchez.

For their part, sources from the Prado Museum have confirmed to Europa Press that thanks to the push from the Ministry of Culture, progress has been made in creating a file, since The art gallery does not want “to have any painting that does not legitimately belong to the Prado Museum.” Although they recall that it is the task of the ministry headed by Ernest Urtasun to proceed with the restitution, they celebrate the return of the works to Rico by the Museums of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria.

In this regard, the family representative explained that they received this news with “great joy and excitement” since the process had been very long until the first restitutions were made.Taking into account their age, since they are both octogenarians and that their reason for claiming these works has always been the memory of their grandfather and emotional issues“, he continued.

On the other hand, the heirs have expressed their “great gratitude” for the treatment they have received from the Museum Service of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria and from the Cabildo itself and the Ministry of Culture, who have “streamlined” things and sought solutions to “legal loopholes and lack of regulatory development”, according to Sánchez, who has welcomed the fact that the administration has “heart”.

“THE CASE OF GRAN CANARIA HAS SERVED TO SPEED UP THE ISSUES”

In addition to the Prado Museum, the family’s lawyer has clarified that the Subdirectorate General of State Museums has also contacted them to request “additional information”, which is why she believes that the case in Gran Canaria has served to “speed up” other fronts that the Rico family had open.

In the case of the Prado collection, it was a seizure carried out in 1938 which resulted in the dispersion of all the assets. The man who was mayor of Madrid between 1931 and 1934 and in 1936 until the outbreak of the war, had to go into exile in France where he died without having the opportunity to claim his collection of 19th century paintings, his library and archive. In March, the location of three of his paintings was found, in the National Museum of Romanticism and in the Museum of Costume.

THE GRAN CANARIA CITY COUNCIL WILL RETURN FIVE WORKS

The Museum Service of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria will return to the family of Mayor Rico five paintings seized by the Franco government in 1938. This was reported by the Museum Service of the Island Corporation, which adds that they had been kept for more than 70 years in the funds of the Casa de Colón in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

In this way, the restitution resolution materializes after an administrative process initiated at the end of last year 2023.

This makes the Cabildo de Gran Canaria the first public institution in the State to promote a return file of this nature in accordance with the conditions determined by Law 20/2022, on Democratic Memory and Royal Decree 2134/2008, on the procedure to be followed for the restitution to individuals of assets seized during the Civil War.

FIVE OIL PAINTINGS FROM PEDRO RICO’S PRIVATE COLLECTION

Likewise, the Island Corporation has sent to the Ministry of Democratic Memory both the resolution of the agreement and the complete file, which resolves the return to the heir family of five oil paintings that belonged to the private collection of Pedro Rico López, signed by three well-known authors of this period, Eugenio Lucas Velázquez, Roberto Domingo Fallola and Francisco Domingo Marqués.

The documentation in the file traces the path followed by these paintings since they were seized by the Delegated Board of Seizure during the Civil War, directly from the home of their owner, and kept in the Prado Museum during the Spanish conflict, combining both historical and legal studies for the complete and rigorous creation of the file.