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The MNAC communicates the board of trustees' agreements on Sixena
The MNAC Board of Trustees is committed to a commission of experts given the technical unfeasible nature of the move.
The Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, meeting in extraordinary session this morning, has unanimously agreed to file a judicial enforcement incident following the ruling that requires the return of the mural paintings from the chapter house of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Sixena. The MNAC will argue before the court that, according to the technical reports of its specialists, it is currently not possible to carry out the transfer of the works without seriously risking their conservation.
The decision has been agreed upon by the representatives of the three administrations that form part of the Board of Trustees —the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council and the Ministry of Culture—, with the shared desire to preserve the heritage value of the paintings and avoid political exploitation of the case. In this context, it has also been agreed to promote the creation of a technical commission made up exclusively of experts, including specialists appointed by the Government of Aragon, which will have to evaluate and guide the steps to be taken to ensure compliance with the judicial resolution with the maximum guarantees of protection for the works.
Below is the full official statement issued by the National Art Museum of Catalonia:
First.- To unanimously highlight the impeccable work carried out by the MNAC over the years in the custody and conservation of these paintings, saved and rescued by Josep Gudiol in 1936 after being seriously damaged by a fire in the context of the Civil War and exhibited in the Museum permanently since 1961. To also highlight how at the same time the Museum has guaranteed their universal accessibility and they have been visited by millions of people and studied within the framework of the most prestigious scientific congresses on Romanesque in the world.
Second .- To ascertain the patrimonial and artistic value of the paintings. The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Sixena was declared a National Monument by Royal Order of March 28, 1923. Specifically, the mural paintings from the Chapter House of the Royal Monastery of Sixena, in accordance with article fourteen of the Spanish Historical Heritage Law, and as set out in the Judgment of the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 2 of Huesca of July 4, 2016, constitute real estate that is considered an asset of cultural interest.
Third.- Express the will of the National Art Museum of Catalonia to comply with the judicial resolutions issued so far in relation to the mural paintings from the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Sixena.
Fourth.- In the framework of the desire to comply with the ruling of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court 824/2025, of May 27, which condemns the MNAC to return the paintings to the Monastery of Sixena, and given the new report presented by the MNAC team in which it is indicated the impossibility of carrying out the transfer of the mural paintings to restore the Chapter Hall of the Royal Monastery of Sixena without putting them at risk, it is agreed to request an enforcement incident in court to report the technical inability of the museum to carry out this operation within the period established by the law of civil procedure, nor technically. In the same vein and with the desire to comply with the ruling, it was agreed to ask the different administrations that make up the consortium to create a working group, of a technical nature and made up solely of specialized personnel, with the purpose of evaluating and carrying out the necessary work to comply with the legal resolutions issued in relation to the paintings in the Chapter House of Sixena.
Likewise, it was also agreed to send the invitation to the Government of Aragon to join this technical commission, designating for this purpose the specialists they consider appropriate, who would work together with the technicians designated by the MNAC and the consortium administrations: the General Administration of the State, the Generalitat of Catalonia and the City Council of Barcelona.
