The Romanesque frescoes from the beginning of the Eighth Century that were recovered from the monastery of Santa María la Real de Sijena, after enduring several attacks perpetrated during the Spanish Civil War, are currently in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña in Barcelona.
After having publicly claimed ownership of the frescoes for several years, the government of Aragón, an autonomous region located in the northeast of Spain, has submitted a formal petition asking the government of Cataluña to return the works of art to their rightful owners. The religious order that has lived in the monastery since the 1980s recently handed the property over the Aragonese government. Nonetheless, the renowned Fundación Caixa invested more than three million euros in the restoration of the monastery during the 1980s and 1990s and, to this day, their representatives have not officially responded to the formal petition that demands the return of the frescoes to the government of Aragón.