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Long-necked wading bird. Fragment of mural painting from San Pedro de Arlanza

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Object history

This is one of several fragments that formed part of the mural that adorned the treasure chapel of the Benedictine monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza (Burgos). In the first decade of the 20th century, a set of mural paintings was discovered under plaster on the walls after the collapse of the staircase connecting the lower and upper floors of the processional cloister. From that moment on, it was considered one of the most interesting examples of late Romanesque painting in Spain (Chapée, 1912, pp. 380-381; Huidobro, 1912, p. 381). Highly expressive paintings that bring the preciousness of bestiaries and illuminated manuscripts to the wall. In this case, they would have to have a close link with the historical and legendary role of the monastery, the origins of the crown of Castile, and the legends surrounding Count Fernán González and his wife Doña Sancha.

At that time the monastery was in ruins: ‘...it lies destroyed and battered, its vaults sunk in dust, its church dismantled, its bell tower silent, most of its doors closed and impassable...’ (García Concellón, 1894, pp. 56-58). Despite the deterioration of the monastic complex, the photographs of Photo-Club Burgos (Burgos Provincial Council Archive) show us details of the paintings in situ, before, at the end of the 1920s, Alejandro Valcárcel Barbadillo, son of the owner of the monastery, Carlota Barbadillo, tried to sell them. First he tried to get the attention of the Provincial Monuments Commission of Burgos, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and the General Directorate of Fine Arts, with the aim of getting the State to buy the mural collection that was still preserved in the palatine chapel of the monastery, located above the chapter house, on the first floor of the Treasure Tower. Her letters were particularly insistent in 1924: ‘As since last year the deterioration is increasing threatening to leave nothing due to the continuous detachments of the lime where the paintings are, a resolution is urgent, which is why a deadline is established and once this has ended without the State having given an affirmative response to purchase, it is understood that it renounces them, abandoning the right of first refusal and leaving the Honourable. Madam Carlota Barbadillo, my client, within the legal procedures of having made it known in accordance with the law of January 1923, being able to dispose of them and alienate them if a bidder or buyer has or presents themselves’ (Request addressed by Alejandro R. de Valcárcel y Barbadillo to the President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, 24 July 1924) It seems that the slow processing of this matter in the offices of Madrid led him to dismiss this option and he opted to sell the paintings to private individuals. (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, p. 99).

The architect Josep Gudiol mediated in the acquisition, the removal of the paintings and their transfer to canvas, with the aim of selling them to North American collections; for this reason, the paintings that once adorned the Palatine Chapel of Arlanza ended up dispersed in different collections. Two examples are preserved at The Cloisters, the medieval art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: a dragon figure and a lion figure. Other fragments of the Arlanza mural collection are in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, this one in question: Zancuda de cuello largo, and seven fragments from the same source currently form part of the collection of the MNAC, Barcelona - most of these were acquired by Josep Gudiol in 1943 and donated by him to the MNAC in 1973.

In this operation that led to the sale of the paintings, and the final export of a significant part of the collection, the role played by the art historian Walter W. S. Cook was important. His archaeological expedition through Castilian lands in 1927 took him, among other places, to Arlanza, where he was able to contemplate the paintings in their original location; shortly afterwards the dismantling of the collection took place. In 1929 Cook informed James J. Rorimer, curator of medieval art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who would later become director of the same museum, that the mural paintings had already been removed and would probably be sent to a Spanish museum. The Spanish press reported that some individuals had bought the Arlanza murals for 10,000 pesetas. The truth is that at that time the paintings were in the hands of the architect Josep Gudiol and the archaeologist Josep Colominas. According to I. Socias, in 1927 they both had an antiques shop called La Sacristía, located at 17 Carrer Coribia in Barcelona. They had Catalan collectors as capitalist partners: Rómulo Bosch y Catarineu and Teresa Amatller y Cros, who would play an important role in the career of Josep Gudi i Ricart. Walter W. S. Cook, who was related to the director of the Episcopal Museum of Vic, Josep Gudiol i Conill - uncle of Josep Gudiol i Ricart - informed Gudiol and Colominas about the Arlanza paintings. The former produced some plans and drawings of the monastery's mural collection, which are preserved in the Frick Art Reference (New York). James J. Rorimer confirmed in 1928 that Josep Gudiol was working on the removal of the Arlanza paintings. Gudiol arrived in New York in early August 1930 with the aim of selling the Arlanza frescoes. In the USA his main supporters were Walter W. S. Cook and James J. Rorimer, who had had the opportunity to see the Arlanza paintings at Gudiol's house in Barcelona in 1929.

On 10 October 1930, the document of commitment between the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edward Robinson, and Josep Gudiol i Ricart for the sale of Arlanza's mural paintings was signed. The museum reserved the first option to purchase the murals, for a period of two months, for a price of $50,000, which could be reduced to $45,000. This amount included the restoration and final installation of the frescoes. From the moment the paintings arrived in New York, the Metropolitan Museum undertook to keep them in its storage facilities and during that period Gudiol could show them to other museums and collectors interested in them, but always with the approval of the New York institution. At the same time, Rorimer wrote a report in which he gave a positive assessment of the acquisition of the paintings by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, because, although incomplete and faded, they were, in his opinion, a good investment for the museum. To this end, he appealed to the considerations of Professor Chandler R. Post, who, in his book on Spanish Painting, had highlighted the qualities of these paintings from the Arlanza treasure chapel. Joseph Breck, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, drew the attention of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the driving force and benefactor of The Cloisters section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the advisability of acquiring the Arlanza murals on deposit at the institution, as the $45,000 demanded for the works was a much lower price than the $120, 000 that, for example, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had paid for two scenes from the San Baudelio de Berlanga set; this set by Arlanza, in his opinion, being just as interesting as that one (Socias, 2020, pp. 203-222).

The magnate replied that George Blumenthal, president of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, was of the opinion of acquiring only those that were in the best state of conservation, rejecting the rest, arguing, moreover, that there would be a problem of space if the whole set were to be installed. After tough negotiations, in which the museum tried to lower the initial price, it finally agreed to acquire the two fragments: Dragon and Lion, from Arlanza, for 30,000 dollars, although Joseph Breck finally managed to reduce it to 28,000 dollars. To avoid criticism in Spain, James J. Rorimer personally asked Chandler R. Post not to talk about the subject in Spain: ‘I have been thinking over the problem of the Arlanza frescoes. I am going to ask you, as a personal favour to me as well as out of regard for the Metropolitan Museum, not to speak in Spain or elsewhere about these frescoes. It is really a very serious matter, and we are desirous not to have it known that we have obtained some of these panels. Josep Gudiol, of whom you spoke, was not the owner of the frescoes, but merely employed to do certain work of transferal and to help us in dealings with certain of the owners’. (Socias, 2020, p. 214).

The rest of the paintings were still awaiting a better opportunity to be sold, as was the case with this example that was sold to the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. It was in the context of the Spanish Civil War that a report by Luis Monreal Tejada, Franco's commissioner for the Levante region, revealed some details: ‘These paintings were acquired by Gudiol (a Red architect, now abroad) and Colominas (an official of the Archaeological Museum of Barcelona). The latter told me that they paid two thousand pesetas for the acquisition (...) Some of the paintings (the most important ones) were sold in North America. The rest are currently stored in the Archaeological Museum of Barcelona and Mr Colominas has them for sale, as he claims that they are currently his exclusive property...’ (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, p. 106).

At that time Josep Gudiol was in exile, which is why they may have already divided ownership of the paintings between them. On 29 November 1943 Josep Colominas sold the Griffon vase to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, and that same year Josep Gudiol sold the remaining fragments that the Catalan institution preserves to the same museum. In 1952 Gudiol sold the paintings relating to the Mermaids to the collector Antonio Gallardo Ballart, who donated them together with other works to the same MNAC, as payment for inheritance taxes (Socias, 2020, p. 215).

In this way, this extraordinary mural collection was dispersed, despite the warnings about its deterioration, as well as the risk of sale and export that reached the Provincial Commission of Monuments of Burgos, the Royal Academies, and the General Directorate of Fine Arts in the 1920s. All this, despite the favourable report of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1924 for them to be acquired by the State for the amount of 10,000 pesetas that the owner of the monastery was asking for them at the time: ‘...although at first glance they do not appear interesting due to the lack of human figures, they are nevertheless extremely important due to the classical quality of their lines and their colouring, and also because the representation of chimerical animals belongs to a sector of the art of painting that is not very common in Spain, with many cases instead being discovered in sculptural and corporeal form. Furthermore, these paintings, when properly studied, can provide historical data of great value. In view of these considerations, it is the duty of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, with its sights set on the ideal of art and the prestige of culture, to advise the government of His Majesty with the utmost respect, the acquisition of the aforementioned paintings of San Pedro de Arlanza, taking them for this purpose in the amount of ten thousand pesetas, a value that coincides with the price established by their owner, the Honourable Mrs Carlota Barbadillo. This will prevent the plundering of our artistic treasure, as it is reliably known in this Royal Academy that the paintings in question have already been requested by business-hungry merchants and also by foreign personalities; a case of shameful despoliation for the Homeland that maintained so much artistic prestige in past centuries’ Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Session of 10 November 1924 (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, p. 101).

Description

Fresco painting transferred to canvas. This is one of the fragments that once made up the pictorial decoration of the treasure chapel of the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza (Burgos). In this case it represents a wading bird that bears a strong resemblance to the griffin bird that is preserved in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, MNAC, also from the Arlanza mural collection.

Locations

• 1929

  monastery

  Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, Hortigüela (Spain)

• 1929 - 1938

  private collection

  José Gudiol Ricart, Barcelona (Spain) *

• 1938 - present

  museum

  Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge [Massachusetts] (United States)