After eight years of procedure, the Spanish Supreme Court ordered, in June 2025, the restitution of the polychrome statues representing Isaac and Abraham to the city of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostela. The decision puts an end to the dispute between the municipality to the heirs of Francisco Franco, who had lent the works to the Musée du Prado in 2016, thus revealing their location.
In October 2017, the town hall demanded the return of the sculptures within fifteen days, failing which it announced legal action. After the death of Carmen Franco Polo in December 2017, the seven heirs shared family goods, including the statues. The first judgment, in 2018, invited the beneficiaries to produce proof of regular acquisition; No document has been paid to the file. The Supreme Court’s decision reaffirms the rights of the city of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle and insists on the need for documented traceability in any property claim.
The judges selected the argument of the municipality, based on the origin of the works: executed between 1168 and 1188 in the workshop of Master Mateo for the portico of the glory of the cathedral, the statues were moved over the restorations. In 1933, they were at the home of the Count of Ximonde, who sold them in 1948 to the city, with a clause prohibiting any transfer outside the town.
In 1954, during an official visit, Carmen Polo, wife of the dictator, noticed the parts and had them sent discreetly to the Meirás palace, the couple’s summer residence, with the help of the mayor of the time. According to Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the recovery of historical memory (ARMH), this episode is part of a wider practice of spoliations operated by the Franco family: “Madrid’s jewelers were to be prepared because when Franco’s wife came, she took what she wanted and never paid anything. »» They enriched themselves considerably during the reign of the dictator. The Meirás Palace had also been attributed to Franco by the government in a diverted manner.
The defense of the national artistic heritage, created by the regime in 1938 to recover the goods displaced during the civil war, also diverted numerous works to public or private collections; The historian Arturo Colorado Castellary estimates the number of parts concerned at 8,710.
Adopted in 2022, the law of democratic memory offers a framework for the return of property seized under Francoism. Apart from the recovery of the statues of Isaac and Abraham and, in 2020, of the Palais de Meirás, the initiatives remain limited: the Ministry of Culture has made a portrait of Francisco Giner de Los Ríos to the foundation of the same name, while the Cabillo de Grande Canarie returned five paintings to the family of the former mayor of Madrid Pedro Rico. However, it is necessary to separate the spoliations orchestrated by the state from those organized by the dictator’s family.
