Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/247



to have been played with the works of art in the same, are the causes why the catalogue, which was framed in September of last year, appeared so imperfect and so scanty, since the number of objects was reduced to sixty-one pictures and three pieces of sculpture, deposited in the convent of the so-called "Monjas Catalinas."' No more favorable account seems to have been received at the time the report was drawn up.

"Lérida.—Here too the civil war is said to have caused the disappearance of most of the pictures in the convents; only eighteen of any merit had been collected in April, 1844, but some more were known to exist in the Seo de Urgel, where the local authorities however refused to give them up to the government. The Commission had not been able to obtain an accurate account even of the eighteen.

"Malaga.— A miserable return of six pieces sculpture and four pictures was all that could be obtained by the Central Commission, and they attribute this result to 'the natural indolence and purely mercantile spirit of that district.' Probably the facility for exportation had a good deal to do with the disappearance of the various works of art which the report affirms to have been once collected and deposited in various public buildings."