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Date Published: 11/08/2021

ARCHIVED - Historic art treasures recovered 32 years after being stolen in Spain

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The items recovered are estimated to be worth almost 300,000 euros

The Guardia Civil has made an astounding discovery of various works of art which disappeared decades ago from public buildings throughout Spain, including three Renaissance multi-coloured wooden sculptures, which were stolen in January 1989 from the parish church of Santa María la Mayor de Olvés in Zaragoza, a book by Galen, published in 1609, which had disappeared from the library of the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid, and historical documentation belonging to the Casa Señorío de Lazcano, property of the Ducado del Infantado.

In October 2020 efforts were renewed to try to recover the Renaissance sculptures, made between 1530 and 1532, which represent the narrative scenes of The Epiphany, The Annunciation and The Resurrection of Christ. A Catalan auction house contacted an Argonese art expert to examine a selection of items and he immediately recognised them as the stolen artefacts from the Zaragoza church.

Officials believe the theft may have taken place while the parish was undergoing restoration work, as other sculptures also disappeared at the time. The reliefs, estimated to be worth as much as 150,000 euros, were transferred by the Historical Heritage Section of the UCO from the city of Barcelona to Calatayud in Zaragoza.

In another operation, the owner of an antique book store contacted the Historical Heritage Section of the UCO, alerting that a person was trying to put up for sale a four-volume collection of Galen's work. Galen is revered as being one of the fathers of medicine and lived in the 2nd century AD, although the book concerned was published at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In remarkable condition given its age, it was recovered by officers of the Guardia Civil and is now housed at the library from which it was originally stolen.

In an equally dramatic fashion, some two hundred and fifty historical documents belonging to the current Duchess del Infantado were recovered after they had been advertised for sale on the internet. The vendor immediately raised suspicions when he couldn’t verify the origin or prove his ownership of the documents, which had been stolen from the Casa Señorío de Lazcano in the Basque Countryand are estimated to be worth 10,000 euros. They have now been transferred to the National Historical Archive in Madrid.

Image: Guardia Civil