Jorge Español: "The Sijena murals will be moved at all costs. And if any damage occurs, that's what the restorers are for."

BarcelonaThe continued legal victories in the Sijena case have made Jorge Español one of the most high-profile and controversial lawyers in Spain. Now, Español is anxiously awaiting the transfer of the murals from the monastery's chapter house to Sijena, while the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) continues its fight to keep them from leaving the museum. The interview took place a few days before Español requested an act of conciliation to the director of the MNAC, Pepe Serra, demanding 90,000 euros in damages and his resignation due to statements Serra made during the presentation of the museum's 2026 program. "They won't get the better of me. I don't care what they publish, it only motivates me more and makes things work out for me."

According to the document that the MNAC As announced a week ago, the Vilanova de Sijena City Council has abandoned the creation of a technical committee to work on the dismantling, packing and relocation of the murals.

— That's not the case. What we had said was that the Vilanova de Sijena Town Council wouldn't be very inclined to participate in a judicial commission that includes experts from the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia), because if their solution is that they don't know how to carry out the transfer, then you tell me what they're doing on this commission. In the document they submitted, they say they're not participating because it makes no sense. And the museum's document also says that the judge should appoint experts designated by international institutions, such as ICCROM, but this is within the judge's purview, and I don't think the judge will do it, because she already has enough experts.

One of the professionals on the commission proposed by Vilanova de Sijena is the restorer Alfonso Monforte. He appears in the TV3 documentary. Sentenced paintingsMonforte states that the murals in the chapter house are such an exceptional case that a set timeline cannot be followed, which contradicts the request made by the judge in Huesca. What do you think of this?

— The timeline is designed solely to let the politician know when the photo op in Sijena will take place. It serves no other purpose. If it were an altarpiece or a painting, the timeline would be very simple. But we're talking about very delicate paintings, so perhaps it can be done in three months, or six, or nine. We don't know. This must be done step by step; any timeline is pointless. What must be done is to do things very well. It's worth considering that this is the most important mural painting relocation operation ever undertaken in the world. Obviously, it will be done well. And nothing will go wrong. Look, the Taüll paintings went to and from Barcelona in 1937 on those bumpy dirt roads, in trucks that wouldn't even be allowed on the road today, and they weren't destroyed. Everyone who knows about this knows that these are ideas Pepe Serra invented for political gain, and nothing more. So the paintings will be moved at all costs. And if any damage eventually occurs, that's what the restorers are for. We're talking about fallacious arguments.

The arguments you consider fallacious are supported by numerous national and international reports from the museum.

— No report says that the paintings cannot be moved, none.

In any case, the risks are very high.

— There is a court ruling that must be obeyed. During the trial, the MNAC's technical experts stated that the exhibits can be relocated, the judge included this in the ruling, and Pepe Serra did not appeal. Why didn't he? Because he knows perfectly well that they can be moved. This is all a political campaign that Serra is destined to lose. He will achieve nothing more than media attention, which generates a lot of noise and nothing else. Let no one doubt that the ruling will be carried out.

The structure on which the paintings are mounted does not fit inside the chapter house of the monastery.

— The paintings will fit perfectly, because they won't be installed the same way they are now. All the clumps Gudiol added will be removed; we have no interest in them. It will be done differently, in a more elegant and modern way. The MNAC's structure is already a 1940s mess that's downright painful to look at.

But these glops The paints hold up.

— These patches didn't last at all. They're meant to fill in the missing paint. Since he had the photos, he filled the gaps with a kind of scribble. At the time, it might have seemed like an acceptable solution, but nowadays you can't even see that it's a patch. It'll be removed.

Politics has clearly taken precedence: in Aragon, it's being called looting or illegal removal. In Catalonia, it's being described as a safeguarding operation carried out in the exceptional circumstances of war.

— It wasn't a rescue operation, it was plunder. The General Directorate of Fine Arts, which had jurisdiction in this territory, was there, as were the owners, the nuns, who were threatened and forced to leave. So when the war broke out, he took advantage of the chaos to seize the paintings. In fact, in the statement Gudiol made at the Spanish consulate in New York to prepare for his trial, he claimed that Joaquim Folch i Torres, director of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, had said of him that he was going to remove the paintings to sell them to the Americans, not to save them. This was said by Folch i Torres, who knew him very well. Gudiol was a businessman, one of those experts who knew what he was doing before making a deal. When he returned from the United States after teaching for a year, Franco had disbarred him as an architect, and he was starving. How do you think he survived? He had a shop called La Sacristía where he sold antiques, and he wasn't the only one.

— [In the statement quoted by Jorge Español, Gudiol writes: "This work of removing mural paintings provoked jealousy among the museum staff. Folch and Torres warned me that word was spreading that I was removing these paintings on my own. Later I learned that he told several of my friends that my interest in saving Sijena's heritage would one day appear on the foreign market." As for La Sacristía, Gudiol severed his ties before the outbreak of the Civil War, and the shop disappears from the record after the war.]

When you were able to see the paintings at the MNAC in November accompanied by experts, were you interested in anything in particular?

— I'm a lawyer, not the expert. We have an Italian mural painting laboratory preparing the report, and then the restorers will come, but I'm not the expert.

When will this report be ready?

— There are many square meters of paintings, and some areas are in very good condition while others are worse. In short, there's a lot of mystery here. One of the questions that should be asked is: why hasn't the MNAC restored the mural paintings? The possibility of their restoration was raised in 1995, but it wasn't carried out. That's perhaps why they're in such bad shape. The MNAC must also accept some of the blame. But we can question the experts and ask them many of the necessary questions; we have about 40 or 50 that they need to answer.

When are these interrogations scheduled to take place?

— I've already said that, without the help of law enforcement, we won't return to the MNAC, because we weren't well received. That said, we did get along well with the conservative Carme Rabell, who was very polite. The problem stems from other people.

Are these people other museum curators?

— I can't answer you.

Have you ever considered taking the paintings to another Aragonese institution other than the monastery?

— The paintings are part of a national monument and should be in Sijena. Perhaps they won't be able to be installed when they arrive at the monastery. When they arrived at the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia), they were kept in the attic for years until they were installed. We have documents stating that they were in very poor condition and that pigeons had defecated on them. [An internal museum statement made public by the Aragonese side indicates that in June 1994, "four pigeon droppings" were found on the head of the prophet Abihud.]

Is there any possibility that the judge will rule that the sentence cannot be carried out?

— None, otherwise the MNAC would have already requested it, and all they talk about is a kind of technical conscientious objection, but this is a disobedience of the ruling.

After this case, do you plan to claim more assets from Aragonese parishes?

— Of course, there are many assets to claim. Obviously, all of them will be claimed. Every single one.

Can you give me a specific one?

— Not now, but they already know: the Lleida Museum, the Frederic Marès Museum, the Library of Catalonia, and the Archive of the Crown of Aragon. Call them and you'll see how they identify the items that belong to the Sijena Monastery.

They are all Catalan museums and institutions. Will they make a claim against any museums from the rest of Spain?

— At the Prado Museum.