This 2006 file photo shows the 'Guernica' tapestry during a conference outside the UN Security Council chamber (Credit: STAN HONDA / AFP via Getty Images)
(CNN Spanish) -
The tapestry of 'Guernica' that for more than 35 years was hung outside the UN Security Council is no longer there.
The Rockefeller family had loaned the tapestry of the famous Picasso painting to the UN in 1984, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told CNN in a statement.
Recently, Nelson Rockefeller Jr., the current owner, "notified the United Nations of his intention to get it back," Dujarric said.
The agency returned the tapestry to its owner days ago.
The tapestry has hung outside the UN Security Council hall since 1985, said Dujarric, who confirmed that council members have been notified and that alternative options for that site will be evaluated.
Nelson A. Rockefeller commissioned the tapestry in 1955, according to information from the UN, which explains that it is a reproduction of the painting (currently exhibited at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid) made under the supervision of Picasso in the workshop by J. de la Baume-Dürrbach in the south of France.
The Rockefellers were the ones who donated the land on the East Side of Manhattan where the UN is based.
The statement from the United Nations spokesperson does not explain what was Nelson Rockefeller Jr.'s reason for requesting the return of the tapestry.
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The Rockefeller family founded, in 1913, the renowned Rockefeller Foundation for philanthropy in the United States.
The 'Guernica', symbol of the horror of war
The 'Guernica' was painted by the Spanish Pablo Picasso in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), according to the information available on the Reina Sofía Museum website.
Picasso painted the picture in Paris after the news of the bombing of this Basque town by German planes in April 1937. However, the museum explains that the sketches and the painting do not represent a specific event “but, on the contrary, they constitute a generic allegation against the barbarism and terror of war ».
In fact, the painting was a foretaste of the horror that other countries would experience years later during the Second World War.
The 'Guernica', in addition to being the best-known painting by Picasso, is one of the most famous in the world and one of the most searched on Google.
The original painting remained for decades in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while Francisco Franco ruled Spain.
He returned to the European country in 1981.
With information from CNN's Richard Roth.
ONU Pablo Picasso