Il Nuovo Postiglione - Madrid ex-mayor's family regains art lost to Franco regime

Since taking office in 2018, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has prioritised rehabilitating the memory of the victims of the general's 36-year dictatorship and the 1936-1939 civil war that brought him to power.

The paintings by three Spanish artists were returned to the family of Pedro Rico, a two-time mayor of Madrid who fled the country during the war and died in French exile in 1957.

"Recovering them is a redress to the memory of our grandfather," his granddaughter Paquita Rico said at the ceremony in the Spanish capital's prestigious Prado art museum.

As Franco's fascist-backed nationalist forces advanced in the war, the ill-fated democratic republic's government created a service responsible for returning to their owners works previously seized for their protection.

That never happened in many cases, and treasures that had not been returned after Franco's victory, such as Rico's, went to museums and institutions.

In 2022, the government passed a divisive democratic memory law in a bid to tackle the legacy of Franco, who ruled with an iron first until his death in 1975.

The law helped accelerate the restitution of cultural assets lost or seized during the war and the dictatorship.

Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun said the returns "tell a story of reparation" that "would be impossible without the determination and commitment of... relatives of so many people who suffered all the violence of the dictatorship".

The culture ministry has published a list of 6,000 items in state museums that were seized during the civil war or the dictatorship and never returned.

The works included gems, ceramics, textile pieces, liturgical ornaments, paintings, sculptures and furniture.

The right-wing opposition says the left is trying to reopen the wounds of the past and has vowed to repeal the democratic memory law if it returns to power.

M.Vacanti--INP