The Prado publishes a list of 25 works seized during the Civil War and the Franco regime

The Prado Museum has published this Tuesday a list with 25 works from its collection that come from seizures made during the Civil War and the Franco regime and has announced that it will open an investigation to find out if there are more pieces in the same situation.

The professor and professor emeritus Arturo Colorado will coordinate the investigation, and acknowledges that "predictably, this figure could be higher."

However, he still has to carry out numerous studies to document the potential seizures and inform the museum.

Colorado points out that this is not an easy task, because the documentation of the time that accompanies the works "is not very explicit."

More information

The return to the De la Sota family of two paintings seized by the Franco regime opens the way for new claims

Among the works, stand out

, by Joaquín Sorolla;

, from the Rubens workshop,

, by Jan Brueghel the Younger, four paintings by José Gutiérrez de la Vega y Bocanegra and two versions of

by François Boucher.

The objective of this investigation, the Prado points out, is to "clarify any doubts that may exist about the background and context prior to its entry into the Prado collections and, if necessary, and in compliance with all legal requirements, proceed to its return to its legitimate owners.

'Head of a woman with a white mantilla', by Joaquín Sorolla. MUSEO DEL PRADO (PRADO MUSEUM)

Of the 25 works on the published list, 22 already had their origin noted on the public file on the museum's website.

The remaining three pieces were not listed there due to their poor state of preservation.

Most of the works - 17 paintings - were delivered directly to the Prado Museum between 1940 and 1942, and the rest arrived at a similar time to the old Museum of Modern Art (later the Museum of Contemporary Art) and also ended up in the collection of the gallery.

The anonymous oil painting 'Saint Augustine meditating on the Mystery of the Trinity', from the Rubens workshop.

The Prado's decision comes shortly after the Government has decided to return to the family of the shipowner Ramón de la Sota two works requisitioned by the Franco regime, after one of his heirs identified them at the Parador de Almagro (Ciudad Real) to through a catalog.

The paintings were recently returned and presented at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, after the State Attorney General's Office issued a report last June encouraging the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism to return them.

The paintings were

, attributed to Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569-1622), and

, by Vicente López Portaña (1772-1850), which were part of the family's collection and which were requisitioned by the Francoist army.