Interior delivers two works recovered from the 17th century to Culture

Two copies printed between the 17th and 18th centuries of the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz were recovered by the Civil Guard last August as part of Operation Ellis on the smuggling of old books.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
08 November 2022 Tuesday 13:48
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Interior delivers two works recovered from the 17th century to Culture

Two copies printed between the 17th and 18th centuries of the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz were recovered by the Civil Guard last August as part of Operation Ellis on the smuggling of old books. Now, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has delivered them to the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta.

"The heritage belongs to everyone and it is up to the governments to ensure that it belongs to everyone. Today I celebrate this recovery and ask the Civil Guard to continue avoiding, punishing and recovering those acts of plunder that may occur," said Iceta.

For his part, Grande-Marlaska stressed that the act "is not only the recovery of a valuable cultural heritage, but also an exercise of reparation and justice with Sor Juana Inés. "It is a way of returning to society a legacy that transmits and preserves the values ​​that define our democracy", he assured.

The Minister of the Interior has defended that the heritage "must be available to Spanish citizens" because he has asserted that "without memory, without history, without something that accredits it, it is more difficult for society to advance". Regarding Sor Juana Inés, Grande-Marlaska recalled the writer's career as "one of the first feminists and a staunch defender of women's right to education"

The delivery ceremony, which took place in Madrid, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, was attended by the United States ambassador to Spain, Julissa Reynoso; the general director of the Civil Guard, María Gámez; the general director of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts, Isaac Sastre, and the director of the National Library of Spain, Ana Santos.

The investigation began in September 2021 when it was detected that a Spanish citizen put three books by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz up for sale in the New York auction room Swann Aution Galleries. Two of them presented on their initial pages property stamps of the Carmelitas Calzadas de Santa Ana Convent in the town of Seville.

The Ministry of Culture and Sports then took the appropriate steps to bring this information to the attention of the auction house, which decided to suspend the sale of the copies, valued at between 80,000 and 120,000 dollars, an amount that exceeds 50,000 euros, which defines the crime of smuggling in relation to goods that are part of the national historical heritage.

The Civil Guard investigators were able to prove that the works had become part of the private collection of a citizen residing in Catalonia who, on his death, was acquired in June 2011 by a Madrid bookstore, which sold them to a Mexican businessman.

Upon the latter's death, the specimens were acquired by the US citizen who put them up for sale at the auction where they were located by the investigators.