Title

Joseph. Adoration of the Magi. Sculpture Group from Cerezo de Río Tirón (Burgos)

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Object history

The sculptural group of the Adoration of the Magi from the church of Nuestra Señora de la Llana in Cerezo de Río Tirón is made up of four sculptures, currently at The Cloisters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Magus King, Magus King.

In 1929 numerous sales of artistic goods took place in various locations in the diocese of Burgos, and it was in this context that this sculptural ensemble disappeared from the church of Nuestra Señora de la Llana in Cerezo de Río Tirón (Burgos), as well as the Romanesque doorway of the same temple; the latter was not exported, as the boxes containing it were requisitioned by the authorities in Vitoria. A shipment that the antique dealer Raimundo Ruiz was hoping to send to New York, as were the sculptures in question, from the same place, which in this case did reach their destination. This explains why this Epiphany ensemble is in New York, while the frontispiece from the same church is preserved in the city of Burgos, where it was sent by the Directorate-General of Fine Arts after the export operation was aborted. The doorway remained for years installed in the Paseo de Isla in Burgos, until it was recently relocated to the monastery of San Juan in the same city, in order to protect it from the deterioration it had been experiencing.

Cerezo de Río Tirón is one of the first towns that the pilgrims' route to Santiago de Compostela encounters on its arrival in the province of Burgos. The church of La Llana offered this rich Romanesque heritage, although before 1924 it was in an advanced state of ruin. In his publication Spanish Romanesque Sculpture (1928), Arthur Kingsley Porter showed both the sculptures in question and the elaborate doorway. Not long after the publication, Raimundo Ruiz acquired the sculptures with the intention of exporting them to the USA. Narciso Sentenach pointed out in 1925 the qualities of these sculptures, which stood out in the ruined building: ‘...only the portal with icon-like archivolts and lateral reliefs of beautiful Romanesque-style figures, one of them representing the adoration of the Magi, with very brave figures, and something of its very correct apse, are preserved from its original construction...’ (Sentenach, 1925, p. 200-202).

The sculptural group in question was located to the left of the door, above a blind arch; they constitute the parts that survived the removal of the pieces: a Virgin enthroned with the Child, to her right Saint Joseph sleeping and leaning towards the mother and son, while on the other side only two magi attend the offering. According to Valdez del Álamo, some Gothic reforms partially modified the doorway, at which point the third king may have been lost. The author also points to the possible origin of the sculptural group in the semicircular space of a missing doorway, perhaps to the west of the temple. The work is attributed to a master who worked in the last third of the 12th century in Burgos, perhaps from Osma, who had to work on other sites in the region: Moradilo de Sedano, Gredilla de Sedano and Butrera (Valdez del Álamo, 1992, pp. 110-145).

Given the state of deterioration of the hermitage, the bishopric of Burgos expressed its intention to transfer the sculptural remains of Our Lady of La Llana to the capital of Burgos and house them in the Diocesan Museum, something of which the Provincial Commission of Monuments of Burgos took note and viewed favourably, since the objective seemed to be the conservation of its most valuable parts. However, after the summer of 1929 the unexpected news reached the offices of the aforementioned corporation: ‘It is reported that in Cerezo de Río Tirón there was a Romanesque doorway in danger of collapse and that it was planned to transfer it to the Diocesan Museum, to which the town objected, finally giving in to the transfer thanks to the intervention of the Civil Governor. In the first days of June the doorway disappeared from the Museum and Mr Santa María [academician Marceliano Santa María] saw the boxes in which it was packed. The aforementioned complaint by the Provincial Commission of Monuments of Burgos does not refer to details of the sculptural ensemble of the Epiphany, but it does seem clear that dismantling work had been carried out in Cerezo de Río Tirón, proceeding to pack the sculpted stones of Our Lady of La Llana in numerous boxes, in principle destined for the episcopal palace of Burgos, from where they had subsequently disappeared. This was done despite opposition from the town (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, vol. 1, pp. 84-92).

The case was debated in Madrid, in the offices of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and sparked a lively controversy, which the ecclesiastical authorities had to face. The clerical press tried to play down the importance of these works: ‘The Burgos stones that Mr Santa María talks to us about in his letter today are a collection of minutiae, clues and suppositions about an event that is so trivial in itself that it seems incredible that it should be brought to the attention of the newspapers’ (El Debate, 27/10/1929, p.1); ‘Those who work to present us as “alienated”, lacking in aesthetic sensibility, are wasting their time. With the little sense we have, we manage not to confuse the stones on the front of Cerezo de Río Tirón and the curtains of Santiago with ‘a Velázquez’ and ‘a Greco’ ‘ (El Debate, 30/10/1929, p.1). For the most part, the operation was aborted after the discovery in Vitoria of numerous boxes in the possession of an antique dealer [Raimundo Ruiz], boxes containing the carved stones of Cerezo de Río Tirón: ‘A short time ago, a large number of boxes containing carved stones were found in Vitoria in the possession of an antique dealer. It appears that they were to be shipped from Valencia to America. The government authority of that province intervened, the boxes were detained and opened, and it turned out that the stones belonged to the famous portico of Cerezo de Río Tirón in this province, which has been the subject of attention on more than one occasion by the San Fernando Academy and our Monuments Commission, and its exportation was successfully prohibited by order of the then Minister, Mr Callejo, giving rise to a lively press campaign in which the Academician Mr Marceliano Santa María intervened, opposing the sale, and the canon of Burgos, Mr Pedro Riaño Campo. Callejo and giving rise to a lively press campaign in which the Academician Marceliano Santa María opposed the sale and the canon of Burgos Pedro Riaño Campo, who had intervened very directly in the matter, defended it. The Director of Fine Arts, Mr Orueta, who takes such a keen interest in Burgos‘ monuments, agreed to seize the boxes and have them delivered to Burgos City Council, as has been done, so that the portico can be rebuilt on a city promenade, which our corporation seems willing to do’ (Bulletin of the Fernán González Institution, 1931, pp. 247-248)

As we can see, the artefacts were requisitioned and opened by the civil governor of the province; the Minister of Public Instruction prohibited their export, and it was decided to install the doorway on the Paseo de Isla de Burgos. The antiquarian Raimundo Ruiz tried to save his investment by claiming his property rights over the stones before the ministry. And he did not give up even when the doorway was already installed in Burgos. In the end he did not manage to export it, but he did manage to export the sculptural ensemble of the Epiphany, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1930 and an integral part of the collection of The Cloisters since its inauguration (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, pp. 84-92).

Locations

• Last quarter of the XII^th c. - 1929

  church

  Church of Nuestra Señora de la Llana, Cerezo de Río Tirón (Spain)

• 1929

  dealer/antiquarian

  Raimundo Ruiz, Madrid (Spain) *

• 1929 - 1930

  dealer/antiquarian

  Joseph Brummer, New York (United States) *

• 1930 - present

  museum

  The Cloisters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (United States)