THE WAR'S THREAT TO SPANISH ART

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 26

THE WAR'S THREAT TO SPANISH ART

I hear that the masterpieces of the Prado Museum,, in Madrid, that still remain in the cellars there are in distinct, danger, and whatever resources of civilisation are left must be mobilised if they are to be saved for posterity, says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." A responsible Spanish authority has addressed an appeal to the International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation, of which Professor Gilbert Murray is the chairman, suggesting that a fund should be raised and the Madrid Government asked- to take steps to preserve the pictures and to allow an engineering authority to be. sent out to devise a sure protection for them. I'learn that the committee has found such a step' outside its powers and has referred the question to the Secretary of the League of Nations.

,It is.likely, I.think, that the League will take the steps suggested. A Spaniard here, an authority on the subject, suggests that three things should be done to, save the treasures of the Prado —-(1) To communicate privately to/the rebels to induce them to desist from all firing and bombing on the Prado zone; (2) to ask the Spanish Government not to have any guns in that zone; and (3) to appoint an experienced engineer with powers to

secure protection for the pictures. Such measures should be extended to all the major art treasures that are in danger in Spain.

What h.is. happened to the art treasures of Toledo is still unknown, although there are many correspondents with Franco's army and much propaganda done by Franco's organisation. From a Spanish ait authority who was in Toledo about the time of its capture some information reaches me. A special delegate was sent to Toledo when the rebel army was near with instructions to preserve the El Greco pictures there. He had the canvases in the El Greco house and El Greco's supreme masterpiece from the Church of St. Thome and other works taken down and rolled up, and prepared for transport for" Madrid.

The Mayor and councillors of Toledo, however, came and stopped them from being taken out of the town, and when this informant left they were on the floor of the church. After the insurgents captured Toledo a curtain has fallen, and nothing has come out about the fate of the pictures. There is a rumour that El Greco's "Burial of the Count of Orgaz," one of the high masterpieces of the world, has been sent to Germany, but there is no confirmation of that rumour.