For Franco's regime, the Republic was the enemy of heritage and religion, whose power was controlled by the "reds" and whose territory was dominated by barbarism, chaos, iconoclasm and the theft of heritage assets. However, this accusation, which was to be maintained with insistent insistence throughout its existence, concealed for decades the work of the Republican safeguarding of the works of art and their fate in the immediate post-war period. The author of this book (a recognised expert in the study of the evolution of heritage during the war and post-war period in Spain and director of several international congresses on the subject, the latest held at the Prado Museum in 2019) had been wondering for years what had been the fate during the early Franco regime of the thousands of works saved and stored by the Republic during the war. Following the award of two R&D projects in this field, and after five years of research, he has now published the surprising results. It begins with a study of Republican and Francoist policies during the war and focuses on the fate of these works by Francoist administrators in the immediate post-war period. The essential core of the book analyses the Francoist management of approximately 17,000 works stored by the Republic, which were returned in many cases to their owners, although a large number were diverted to other recipients, who nevertheless often recognised them as their own. The study of the delivery of thousands of these pieces to museums, organisations, the Church and even private individuals, which led to the plundering, the diaspora and the disappearance of numerous works, is an unprecedented research novelty. In many ways, this Francoist despoilment has undeniable parallels with that carried out by the Nazis in the same years. It is art as spoils of war.

Language: Spanish

Pages: 352