The transfer of the profane works of Sixena will begin on July 6

BarcelonaThe National Art Museum of Catalonia communicated by letter this Tuesday to the Aragonese government that the transfer of the profane works from Sixena will begin on Monday, July 6, and will be completed this month, according to Efe. Unlike the murals in the chapter house, the profane works have less delicate conservation conditions and easier-to-move supports, so the MNAC has always stated to the judge that it could "deliver them immediately".

The vice-president of the government of Aragon, Mar Vaquero, explained this during a visit to the monastery of Sixena, where she met with the Madrid company awarded the project. Vaquero expressed surprise at the Catalan museum's sudden "haste" and recalled that both the dismantling and the transfer "require administrative intervention by the government and its technicians" because they are assets that are part of the Cultural Heritage of Aragon. The Provincial Commission of Cultural Heritage of Huesca is the entity that should grant authorization and supervise the technical project, so Aragonese government specialists should be at the museum this month to give their approval for the transfer. The vice-president requested "all possible safety and the maximum guarantees of conservation," as well as time to prepare the monastery rooms where they will be exhibited.

This Wednesday, the Aragonese government asked the MNAC to send it the technical project for dismantling and transport before July 10. Taking advantage of this communication, Aragon reminded the MNAC that it must comply with the judicial ruling that obliges it to return the murals within 56 weeks, which began counting on April 10. Vaquero asked the museum not to "omit any type of information about the work it is doing to execute the sentence." "We would not want to have to resort to forced execution—she warned—for which, logically, we are also prepared."

The MNAC delivers a risk assessment on the transfer of the chapter house murals

In parallel with the management of profane paintings, the MNAC's lawyers have presented to Court of Instruction 2 of Huesca a partial and incomplete risk assessment report on the transfer of mural works to the Monastery of Santa Maria de Sixena, and have asked Aragon to provide the "necessary and essential" information to draft the unloading and unpacking phase and the reinstallation phase.

In the document, the museum's management requests the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain (IPCE) and/or the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (Iccrom) to review and validate the report, and has asked the court to suspend the deadline established in the schedule by the order of April 10 of this year from today until Aragon provides the necessary information for the assessment.

In its risk report, it analyzes short-term risks, indicated in chronological order, and long-term risks, the most relevant being the "interruption of the physicochemical equilibrium that mural paintings may suffer when transferred". Regarding short-term risks, the MNAC observes the pre-work and conditioning phase, and the fragmentation and dismantling phase as a "critical" level, and considers it "unassumable/unacceptable" with current knowledge; it requires an in-depth study of the technical strategy and makes it conditional on carrying out preliminary tests.

In phase 3, packaging and loading, the MNAC sees a "moderate-high" risk level and has identified "significant risks that require constant technical supervision and specific mitigation measures". In phase 4, road transport, the risk level is "moderate", and the detected risks can be managed through standard protocols and monitoring, for which good planning and technical strategy for packaging is required.

Regarding phase 5, unloading and unpacking, at Sixena, and phase 6, reinstallation, the museum has assured that "the assessment could not be carried out due to a lack of relative information", on the one hand, about the unloading area, the unpacking space and the circuit to it, and on the other hand, about the space where the paintings will be reinstalled or the installation system.

Regarding long-term risks, the museum has stated that the conditions of the space where the paintings will be moved are critical elements for their preservation, and has underlined that at the time of drafting the report, it "did not have the information to be able to assess the impact of the future conservation conditions of the paintings".

The museum has stated that by providing the risk assessment report, it complies with phase 2 of the timeline approved in the April provision. Furthermore, the MNAC has reiterated the extreme fragility of the mural works and has underlined that, despite its experience in moving works of art, it "does not have the capacity" to carry out an operation of this magnitude and complexity. It also underlined that the report is "partial and incomplete" because it lacks information from Aragon, which prevents assessing the risks arising from the change in the state of the paintings and the interruption or modification of stability conditions, and has requested the validation of a committee of experts of the highest prestige.

The MNAC has pointed out the "impossibility of continuing to advance in the subsequent phases of compliance with the timeline" until the risk assessment report is complete.