The Count of Las Almenas, José María de Palacio y Abárzuza (1866-1940), was a predator of wealth disguised as a philanthropist.
On the one hand, he paid for rehabilitation works on historic buildings and, on the other, he looted his most outstanding pieces to sell them to the highest bidder or build a palace in Torrelodones (Madrid) with impressive architectural elements.
And that was what he did with several of the sculptures that surrounded the spectacular sepulcher of Juan II of Castile and his wife, Isabel of Portugal, parents of Queen Isabel the Catholic.
The tomb is located inside the church of the Cartuja de Miraflores, an Elizabethan Gothic monumental complex three kilometers from Burgos.
To avoid the scandal of the obvious looting of the royal burial,
the nobleman replaced some of his statues with copies or with others that were not related.
Now, the people in charge of the monastery have demanded from the Metropolitan Museum of New York the return of an alabaster figure that represents the apostle Santiago el Mayor, a piece that was part of the royal tomb and that was auctioned in 1927, according to advances
The Burgos newspaper.
Sources from the monastery confirm this and maintain that the Spanish Embassy in the United States is collaborating in the return process.
The diplomatic delegation denies it.
More information
Archaeologists ask the collector who keeps the valuable bronze from Luzaga to show it and allow its study
The study
Las aventuras laboras de restoración del Conde de las Almenas en la Cartuja de Miraflores
, by María José Martínez Ruiz, published in the art magazine
Goya
, recalled that, in 1933, the then prior of the convent, Edmundo Gurdon, received the unexpected visit of the North American researcher Harold E. Wethey, "who informed him of the sale in the United States of a statue, in whose catalog the origin of [the charterhouse of] Miraflores was outlined."
It was the missing sculpture of the Apostle Santiago.
The piece had been auctioned eight years earlier at the American Art Association in New York, as the American researcher explained to the Carthusian.
It belonged to the so-called
Colección Almenas
and included other figures also looted from the Burgos monument.
In the bid catalogue, the figure of Zebedee appeared as an “alabaster statue of the Apostle Santiago, by Gil de Siloé, late 15th century and from the tomb of Juan II and Isabel of Portugal”.
The work of art was acquired by a millionaire, who integrated it into the so-called Reginald de Covan collection, but in 1969 it became part of the funds of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at its headquarters The Cloisters, in Manhattan, focused on medieval art.
The piece is in excellent condition.
The spectacular sepulcher that Elizabeth I ordered to carve is shaped like an eight-pointed star.
In addition to the sculptures that reproduce the recumbent bodies of her parents, the monument included images of four evangelists (one at each cardinal point) and 12 apostles, along with multiple figures dedicated to virtues and saints.
It is unknown how many statues completed the burial, but it has been confirmed that many were moved from one side of the funerary complex to the other and that some disappeared or were replaced by new ones over time.
Sepulcher of Juan II and Isabel of Portugal, in the Cartuja de Miraflores. Navia (Cover / Getty Images)
The first loss of which there is evidence occurred on February 2, 1659, when Fray Nicolás de la Iglesia, assistant to the sacristan, recognized that the image of the Virgin with Child
had been taken to an altar, that he had painted it and had painted it
. A crown was placed for the faithful to adore, although in 1920 it was recovered for the whole.
The War of Independence (1808-1814) was the first major disaster for the tomb.
The Napoleonic troops of General D'Armagnac destroyed it.
The figure of King Juan II, however, kept the crown and the scepter he was carrying, but lost his right hand.
The French even tried to move the entire tomb to their country, but its great weight and, above all, the warlike conditions of the moment made it inadvisable.
The room where he was found was deprived of all his paintings, which were taken to France, including the altarpieces by Juan de Flandes -today in Serbia, the United States, the Netherlands and a collector in Madrid- and a triptych by Roger van der Weyden, currently in Berlin.
In the publication
Los Cuadernos de Restoración de Iberdrola
-the burial was restored five years ago- it is pointed out that "at the beginning of 1821 the charterhouse was attacked and looted by what one historian called a 'tumultuous mob of armed people' of liberal groups out of control.
The revolutionaries once again inflicted various damages on the burial, but in particular they attacked the statue of King Juan II as they were unable to do so with the then reigning Ferdinand VII.
They attacked and broke the monarch's crown and scepter, and possibly especially damaged the sovereign's head, which was restored between 1823 and 1835.
In 1880 there were 12 apostles left, more or less mangled and headless, which were reduced to five only six years later, according to photographs of the time.
In 1905, there was no trace of the four evangelists and only four apostles remained, two of them without heads and who were close to the queen's head.
The statue of Santiago el Mayor was still in place.
It suffered no apparent damage.
There is evidence that, until 1915, in the eight small windows that surround the tomb there were as many small sculptures.
As of that year, there were only four left.
Specifically, between the figures of the Virgen de la Leche and Abraham there was a female figure.
Among the statues of Joseph and Samson, there was a Magdalene, but she did not belong to Siloam.
Its provenance is unknown.
Between David and Daniel was the image of a bearded prophet, while between the representations of Justice and Strength was placed an 18th-century female figure.
Exterior of the Cartuja de Miraflores, built in the 15th century, three kilometers from Burgos.
DEA / W. BUSS (Getty)
Martínez Ruiz assures in his study that the Count of Las Almenas convinced the Carthusian community in 1915 "to restore the figures of the royal tomb".
“The company was his responsibility: for this purpose, a craftsman from Madrid arrived in order to carry out castings of the pieces, according to what the attorney father told the representatives of the Provincial Monuments Commission who visited the place in the face of the public uproar.
The count himself took some of the sculptures to the capital [Madrid], while making a series of changes in the placement of the others in the monument, perhaps to hide the gaps”.
In 1927, the auction of the figure of the apostle that the aristocrat had looted was held in New York, but surprisingly a few years later, around 1936, three new figures appeared in the tomb that have nothing to do with the original work.
They are supposed to have been placed by the count.
It is about a San Esteban (which comes from the neighboring tomb of the Infante don Alfonso), a saint and a Dominican reading a book, of unknown origin.
On a date that cannot be determined, small lions are also placed on each side of the star that "are from an inexperienced hand."
“That is to say”, the historian maintains, “the images, according to Wethey, came from another place and, apparently, little in keeping with the original iconographic program, which had been mixed with the primitive ones, to which was added a general rearrangement of the group .
Crowned head of King Juan II of Castile, in the Cartuja de Miraflores.Vicente Olaya
In 1936, the count buried a bearded man opening a book, which also came from the royal tomb of Miraflores, in his mansion in Torrelodones, known as Canto del Pico and which is built with elements looted without control from all over the Peninsula.
The aristocrat who had ruthlessly looted the tomb claimed that he wanted to prevent the strife from harming it.
The image is currently in a private collection.
Two lions at the feet of the representations of Justice and Strength. Vicente G, Olaya
In 2018, after a 15-year restoration of the charterhouse and an investment of four million euros, a replica of the figure of the apostle was placed, which was made by the World Monuments Foundation.
It is not integrated into the recovered monument, but is in a glass case in an exhibition room of the monastery.
Now the Carthusians want to recover the original figure of the apostle who, according to tradition, arrived in Hispania in 33 AD.
C., who left for the United States in 1927 and who is expected in Burgos, with open arms, in 2023.
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