Spain’s Culture Ministry is honoring its commitment to return some 5,126 works of art and artifacts seized under Francisco Franco’s rule after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

The works of art had been gathered and stored by Spain’s former government after Franco, an army general, participated in a 1936 military coup against the country’s fledgling republican government that would lead to his rise to power as the self-stylized “caudillo” of Spain within three years. When the war ended, Franco’s new government seized the works—including paintings, sculptures, books, jewelry, and more—and distributed them to various museums and institutions.

Franco’s nearly four-decade dictatorship ended with his death from medical issues in 1975. Yet the seized artworks had not been returned to their rightful owners in the five decades since then. In June, Spain’s Culture Ministry finally put together a list of the items with the intention of restituting them.

Spain’s Culture Ministry announced on December 12 that it has returned the first of these works to the Francisco Giner de los Ríos Foundation. Painted by Manuel Ojeda y Siles, Giner, an influential Spanish philosopher, is depicted in the painting as a child.

Manuel Ojeda y Siles. Francisco Giner de los Ríos, child. Photo courtesy of the Spanish Culture Ministry.

Óscar Arroyo Ortega, the head of the National Library, ordered the return of the work in October, which Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun authorized. During a restitution ceremony, the painting was handed over to the foundation’s president, José García-Velasco.

“The return of property seized by the Franco regime, such as the portrait of Giner de los Ríos that we have today returned to its rightful owner, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, is, more than a legal obligation,” Urtasun said on social media. He called it “an act of reparation full of depth and meaning for the Culture Ministry.”

Prior to its seizure, the painting had belonged to the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, or the Free Institution of Education, which was a groundbreaking private educational project founded in 1876 by a group led by Giner. The school, which taught secular and progressive thinking while emphasizing arts and culture, was ultimately banned under Franco’s rule in 1940.

When Spain transitioned into a democracy, the Free Institution of Education reconstituted itself and has sought the return of the work, which has been housed at the National Library of Spain—an autonomous affiliate of Spain’s Culture Ministry.

Stone statues deposited in San Francisco el Grande, early September 1937. Courtesy Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain.

The publication of the list of seized artworks is an outgrowth of the Democratic Memory Law, which went into effect in 2022 and is meant to address the aftermath of the Franco regime. It also includes provisions requiring the teaching of the history of the dictatorship, renders void convictions for military rebellion, requires the exhumation of mass graves, and requires the removal of various Francoist monuments, among others.

Those who believe they have a claim on any of the 5,126 artifacts can submit an application with the Ministry of Culture, which says that responses will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.