III. The Counts of Urgell and the Monastery of Les Avellanes: Archaeological Evidence and Material Analysis of a Building and Its Monuments

Introduction

Five fourteenth-century tombs at the Met Cloisters in New York commemorate the Counts of Urgell, a significant family dynasty in the history of Catalonia (Figs. 1–3).¹ Four of these polychrome stone monuments originated from the monastery of Santa Maria de Bellpuig de Les Avellanes in the Lleida province of Catalonia. The fifth effigy, smaller in size, is attributed to the parish church of Santa Maria de Castelló de Farfanya in the same region (Fig. 4).²

Significant on their own artistic merit but separated from their original architectural setting, each of these sculptures gains meaning when understood in the context of its creation. For the Les Avellanes tombs, resolving ambiguities of provenance is important. The monastery’s complex history, starting with an interruption in construction of the church’s Gothic renovation in 1314, followed by centuries of destruction and reconstruction, as well as the loss of most original ecclesiastical records, obscures understanding of the Urgell tomb commission.³ Reviewing evidence provided in past scholarship, this study also brings new evidence based on interdisciplinary collaboration between Catalonian field specialists and conservators and conservation scientists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Current analytical tools along with physical examination of the effigies and their architectural setting help explore affiliation of the Cloisters’ tombs to Les Avellanes in the early fourteenth century. In this study, the effigies’ stone and polychromy were analyzed through petrographic and paint analysis at the Cloisters.⁴ Local archaeological examination and petrographic analysis of the building’s fabric was performed at Les Avellanes. Finally, location of the historical quarries through archival and field research was undertaken, providing information on the fourteenth-century workshop.

The Tomb Effigies

The four larger monumental tombs at the Cloisters represent members of the dynasty of the Counts of Urgell. The tombs include two stacked effigies of a female and a male figure (Fig. 2), a single knight dressed in full armor (Fig. 3), and a more complex effigy of a man holding a sword and celebrated by rows of mourners behind him (Fig. 1). Above the latter tomb is a separate rectangular relief with clerics performing a funeral rite and a small figure representing a soul. This effigy sits over a sarcophagus with figures of Christ and apostles framed by ornamental micro-architecture, while the other effigies display prominent shields on their sarcophagi, with the coat of arms of the house of Urgell and of the house of Foix for the female figure. Although the shields, along with smaller heraldry scattered within the figural composition, confirm representation of the Urgell dynasty, the identity of the tombs’ original occupants remains uncertain.

The sculptural project originated with Ermengol X (1254–1314), Count of Urgell, between 1267 and 1314. Perpetuating his ancestors’ predilection for Les Avellanes, Ermengol X repeatedly offered financial support to the monastery in 1278 and 1284.⁵ In 1299, having recently lost his brother Àlvar de Cabrera to military action in Sicily, he obtained his brother’s remains and ordered their transfer to Les Avellanes for a funeral.⁶ Without heirs to the Urgell dynasty, the idea of creating a larger pantheon to celebrate and honor kin and ancestors, including Ermengol’s own tomb, was likely developed around that time. Ermengol’s will of July 1314, written just before his death, mentions the idea of a tomb built inside the church of Les Avellanes, as well as generous funds for his funeral. However, the extent to which the multiple tombs were completed by 1314, and which family members and how many of them were buried at Les Avellanes, remain unknown.⁷ Scholars are in agreement that in his planning, Ermengol X must have been inspired by the polychrome stone tomb of Peter III (1239–85; King of Aragon, Valencia, and the Catalan counties, 1276–85), whose funeral he attended, at the nearby Cistercian church of Santes Creus.

A number of post-medieval documents describe the effigies and their surroundings, yet they betray significant inconsistencies in details of the tombs’ physical configurations. Over time, subsequent descriptions show evidence of assembled and disassembled parts, interchanged or lost elements, swapped identities, and indications pointing to the possible presence of more tombs at the monastery. Records include textual descriptions by resident abbots and historians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including but not limited to Diego Monfar y Sors (active 1641-1652), Jaume Caresmar (1717–1790), and Jaume Pasqual (1736–1804),⁸ as well as visual documents such as a nineteenth-century drawing of one of the tombs at Les Avellanes dated to 1882.⁹ In addition, two groups of black-and-white photographs exist, the first dated to 1906 and taken in the monastery before the tombs’ sale (described below)¹⁰; and the second to 1910–34, when the tombs resided with the Parisian art dealer George Joseph Demotte (1877–1923).¹¹ The questions raised by cross-referencing these documents are so numerous that doubts have been cast over the very completion of the tombs for the monastery in the early fourteenth century, with an alternate hypothesis that they may have been transported there from other regional churches in the eighteenth century to increase the monastery’s geopolitical presence.¹² Photographs taken at the monastery in 1906 prior to the tombs’ dismantlement display painted inscriptions above the effigies identifying, as described in Jaume Caresmar’s historical writings, the largest tomb as that of Ermengol VII (ca. 1120/30–1184), founder or patron of the first twelfth-century monastic community at Bellpuig de Les Avellanes; the double tomb as that of Ermengol VII’s wife Doña Dulcia (ca. 1140–1209), daughter of Roger III Count of Foix (1243–1302), with her son Ermengol X; and the single knight as that of Àlvar, brother of Ermengol X (1268–1314) (Fig. 10).¹³ More recent scholarship argues that the Cloisters’ effigies instead represent the commissioner Ermengol X for the larger tomb (Fig. 1); his parents, Àlvar Rodrigo de Cabrera (1239–1267) and Cecília de Foix (1236–1270), for the stacked effigies (Fig. 2); and his deceased brother Àlvar de Cabrera, Viscount of Àger, for the single knight in armor (Fig. 3).¹⁴ The identities remain contentious, but it is clear that on the basis of style, all surviving tombs were the product of a single commission carved by a common workshop between 1299 and 1314.¹⁵ For ease of reference, the tombs will follow the identifications proposed by more recent scholarship.

Tomb Auction

The modern history of Les Avellanes follows the sad fate of many monasteries in Catalonia at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the government, appointed by Regent and Queen Consort of Spain María Cristina de Borbón (1806–1878) seized the property of monastic centers to proceed with their public auction, the so-called confiscation of Mendizábal (1835–37).¹⁶ After expropriation and privatization of the monastery, Les Avellanes went through the hands of three secular parties during the nineteenth century; the last owner, Lleridan banker Agustín Santesmasses i Pujol, sold the tombs in 1906, causing a wave of indignation in Catalan political and social circles.¹⁷ Acquired by a Basque antique dealer from Vitoria, Luis Ruiz, the tombs made their way to Paris and later to New York via the French art dealer George Joseph Demotte and his son Lucien Demotte (1906–1934).¹⁸ In 1928, George Blumenthal, on behalf of John D. Rockefeller Jr., acquired the larger tomb of Ermengol X in Paris for the Cloisters. The museum acquired the other two effigies in 1948, when heirs of Demotte sold them at a government auction.¹⁹ In Spain the counts’ human remains were transferred to the nearby parish church of Vilanova de la Sal and kept inside a metal box in a modest tomb. They were exhumed again in 1967 to be transferred to Les Avellanes, and are now kept in stone coffins exhibited in the church presbytery (Fig. 5).²⁰

History of the Architectural Restoration

The history of the monastery’s architectural restoration is an essential part of the history of the Urgell tombs. Although the current Les Avellanes complex mostly consists of modern design, restored and rebuilt by the Marist Brothers in the early twentieth century, medieval sections of the monastery have survived, including a cloister, small sections of a chapter house, and part of the Gothic church with its portal.²¹

The cloister represents the oldest part of the monastery, and while its original south wing remains largely intact (Fig. 6), its eastern and northern galleries have been heavily restored.²² Dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the cloister is the only evidence remaining of the first building campaign of Bellpuig de Les Avellanes promoted by Ermengol VII.²³ Rectangular in floor plan, it displays arches supported by double columns and capitals decorated with stylized bas-relief foliage, palmettes, flowers, and occasional figural motifs in the south and west galleries, as well as undecorated capitals.²⁴ Characterized by the use of geometric tooth friezes (with many replacements) and drill holes on certain capitals, the architectural ensemble is stylistically associated with the twelfth-century cloister of Santa Maria de Gualter, a monastery located fifty kilometers east of Bellpuig de Les Avellanes; and with the southern portal of Sant Miquel de Castelló de Farfanya, dated to the thirteenth century. More recently, the cloister has also been compared to the façade of the Romanesque church of Santa Maria de Almatà (sanctuary of Sant Crist de Balaguer), built at the end of the thirteenth century.²⁵

The rest of the monastic complex has lost all traces of the building’s Romanesque foundations, which were apparently removed during the Marist Brothers’ restorations in the twentieth century. Sections of the fourteenth-century church renovations attributed to Ermengol X’s patronage nonetheless survive. However, they are difficult to delineate in the building, with later restorations blurring the lines between original masonry and reuse of stones for repairs over centuries, as well as the addition of newly quarried stones matching original material. Remains of the Gothic church fabric include the presbytery and four transept chapels on the east, where the Urgell tombs were located; the cross vaults for their ceilings; and the northwestern entrance to the church transept. Since the church’s Gothic renovation was not completed by the time of Ermengol X’s death in 1314, and little improved thereafter due to the devastating outbreak of the Black Death in 1348, the rest of the church’s architectural components ostensibly retained their prior Romanesque structures in the fourteenth century.

After a series of economic difficulties brought the monastery to near ruin in the early eighteenth century with the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), some repairs were undertaken between 1718 and 1736 at the abbot’s palace, living quarters, refectory, and kitchen, as well as for the vaulted arches of the cloister and parts of the chapels. Most of this work was supplanted by later restorations.²⁶ Abandoned in the nineteenth century with the departure of monks escaping persecution during the first Carlist war (1833–40), Marist Brothers salvaged Les Avellanes in 1910. By then the site was uninhabitable, they constructed new living quarters on the north and west sides of the building in 1924, with architect Jeroni Martorell i Terrats (1877–1951) opting for new building materials of white and pink limestone, demarcating the living quarters from the rest of the monastic complex. With clear modernist intentions, prefabricated concrete blocks were also used to restore the cloister’s long-abandoned northern arcade. ²⁷

The church restoration in the twentieth century was approached very differently. Its architect, Josep Goday i Casals (1882–1936), was a disciple and friend of Josep Puig i Cadafalch (1867–1956), known for his comprehensive refurbishments of medieval buildings rivaling the work of Viollet-le-Duc in France. In 1933, Goday’s hope was to complete the Gothic building envisioned by Ermengol X but never finalized, by attempting to follow hypothetical original medieval plans, deliberately hiding the chronological differences between original substrate and modern interventions. The work consisted of removing all structures in ruins, including likely remnants of the first Romanesque structures, and completing the church’s nave and southern transept with a ceiling of Gothic-style ribbed vaults. Unfortunately, there are no records of archaeological finds for this reconstruction. While the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and Goday’s own premature death brought work to a halt in 1936, the Dirección General de Regiones Devastadas y Reparaciones reactivated the project after the war, and one of the leading architects who specialized in the conservation of Spanish monuments, Alejandro Ferrant Vázquez (1897–1976), finalized it in the 1960s.

This chronology of building repairs not only facilitates interpretation of the monastery’s current appearance but also helps resituate the tombs in their original architectural context. Most importantly, it provides guidance for dating the church’s Gothic entrance to the north, a key supporting element for the Urgell tombs (Fig. 7a). The portal is a fourteenth-century creation displaying twentieth-century restorations, not an eighteenth-century pastiche as has been suggested.²⁸ The cement fills applied on the archivolt and arcaded cornice date to the 1924 campaign, and the stone replacements on the bottom archway jambs and stairway to the 1960s (Fig. 7b). In composition and style, the portal resembles other Catalan church entrances such as that of Santa Maria of Guimerà dated to circa 1340–50.²⁹ With slightly pointed compound archivolts, the door is framed by a series of small, engaged columns in groups of three, topped by capitals with coats of arms, as well as foliate and animal motifs. At its inception the exterior façade would have introduced, at the entrance, the interior tomb program, prominently displaying the family’s heraldry. While most of the shields on the capitals belong to the Urgell lineage, two require further examination. One capital to the right displays a flowering hill, a motif corresponding to the arms of the Bellpuig (“beautiful hill”) monastery (Fig. 8), also found on the back edges of Ermengol X’s sarcophagus, as documented by James Rorimer in 1931.³⁰ The second shield of interest is that of a lion rampant to the left of the doorway, described by Diego Monfar as emblematic of the monastery’s first founders (Fig. 9).³¹ The symbol could also belong to the abbot who renovated the church in the early fourteenth century.³² It may otherwise be linked to Faydida, Ermengol X’s second wife since 1300, whose father, Jordán V Vizconde de L’Isle, used a lion rampant as his coat of arms.³³ In this case, the lion capital together with the checkered heraldry of the Urgell dynasty further to its right, and a capital with intertwined doves (symbol of union and love) in between the two, promote Ermengol X and his wife’s patronage for the church.

The portal design also incorporates a blind-arcaded cornice above the entrance, startlingly similar to the architectural composition found on the double sarcophagi of Àlvaro and Cecília, and on the sarcophagus of Àlvar de Cabrera. Examination of the sarcophagi’s stone and polychromy (discussed below) verified a medieval origin and confirmed the tombs’ connection to the fourteenth-century portal commission (see Fig. 2).³⁴

What may be significant in considering the doorway’s sculptural program and tomb sarcophagi are the rigidity, flatness, and stylized character of the carving.³⁵ The low-relief carving with sharp outlines refers to a fourteenth-century Catalan style typical of the so-called Lleida school, notably associated with some sections of its cathedral, but also with other churches in the region such as Guimerà and San Francisco de Montblanc, and with capitals at Santa Agata in Barcelona.³⁶ The small heads bracketing the Les Avellanes doorway with sharp simplified figural features seem less naturalistic than, for example, the portrayal of James II and Blanche of Anjou framing the southwest portal entrance of the Santes Creus monastery (after 1313).³⁷

The Tombs’ Interior Architectural Surrounds

The history of the monastery’s restoration campaigns helps explain the tombs’ interior architectural surrounds. The 1906 black-and-white photographs capture the last visual evidence of the tombs in their original context. Àlvar de Cabrera dressed in military armor is inserted in a niche located in the church’s south transept chapel, framed by heavy pilasters, a pointed trilobed cusped arch with composite moldings, and a quatrefoil oculus (Fig. 10). Ornate but equally stiff clusters of flowers and foliate details punctuate the design. In the 1906 archival photographs, the other three tombs are in a place of honor to the right and left of the main altar, where their remains are today (see Fig. 5).³⁸ A plain trilobed arch with losses at the cusps and an oculus terminating in simple round knobs once framed the more complex tomb of Ermengol X. The double tombs of Àlvar and Cecília displayed a double scalloped arch with five cusps of stylized flowers and clusters of leaves.

Several technical elements can help date the tombs’ immediate architectural surrounds, confirming a largely medieval origin. Evidence of different phases of construction or destruction can be seen on the walls in the empty tomb niches, noticeable in surface details on the masonry and in the occasional mark left by stonemasons. In particular, a mason’s mark shaped as a crossed-out inverted V—possibly an A or a compass—is incised in one of the stones on the rear wall of Ermengol X’s niche (Fig. 11). Masons’ marks, seemingly used by stone cutters to identify a phase of construction for payment (bankers’ marks) or to confirm stone quality from a quarry, are an important part of archaeological investigations, providing evidence for the reconfiguration of complicated construction chronologies.³⁹ Although mostly site specific and difficult to date, the mark at Les Avellanes appears medieval; it can be compared, for example, to one found on a wall in the twelfth-century section of the Cathedral of Santiago da Compostela.⁴⁰ Further confirming its dating are the bold diagonal chisel marks surrounding the freehand mason’s mark, in stark contrast with the modern bush-hammered surfaces of replacement stone below. The chisel marks resemble those evident on the protected backs of two Urgell tombs, visible in photographs taken before the sculptures’ installation at the Met Cloisters in 1948 (Fig. 12).

Materials and Techniques of Tombs and Their Architectural Surrounds

Petrographic Analysis of Stone

A key element in discussing the identity of the Urgell tombs and their assumed architectural setting is the characterization of the stones used to create these monuments, as well as the identification of the quarries employed for all stages of construction. The remaining original monastic records at Les Avellanes provide no description of the tombs’ creation or the Gothic church renovation. To address these limitations, petrographic analysis was performed on stones from the monastery, the tombs, and geological outcrops on land owned by the monastery, in a joint research project of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cultural Heritage Applied Research Group/Technological Center for Heritage Conservation, and the Institut Químic de Sarrià at the Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona.

In New York, small samples of the effigies were collected and mounted for thin-section analysis. Samples were taken from each individual part of the tombs, namely, the sarcophagi, effigies, and other reliefs. In Les Avellanes, a similar study was performed on samples collected from the arches surrounding the tombs, from elements of the Romanesque cloister, and from remains of a quarry of sedimentary rocks (quarry 1) located approximately 1.5 kilometers to the east of the monastery, in the municipality of Vilanova de la Sal, in the area known as L’Hospital or partida del l’Hospital.⁴¹ Geographically, this area is confined to the west by the old Àger road, to the east by the current road to Vilanova de la Sal (LV 9046), to the south by the Serra de Campvim, and to the north by the path of the Hospital (Fig. 13). The quarry, opened in the 1960s to complete the monastery’s renovation, is located slightly east along the Hospital Road, and still preserves a large number of stone blocks with tool marks and dressed ashlars. A second, inaccessible quarry (quarry 2), located slightly to the east of the previous one, was discovered on the basis of an oral historical account.⁴² This quarry is obstructed by vegetation and modern pavement but possibly holds important archaeological remains. Geologically, both quarries are located close to the fault contact between the Avellanes halite-gypsum diapir (Keuper, Triassic) and Oligocene lithostratigraphic units.⁴³ In this area, the Oligocene series includes gypsum, gypsum marl, and sandstone. The samples analyzed in this study originate from the base of the stratigraphic group exposed in the quarry 1, consisting of a siliciclastic calcarenite, with strong macroscopic similarities to the stone materials of the Urgell tombs and the monastery of Les Avellanes.

Results of the joint analysis showed that all samples share very similar compositional and textural characteristics, suggesting that all of the tomb parts along with their architectural surround from the twelfth to at least the fourteenth centuries were carved from the same lithotype, most likely extracted from a single sedimentary formation such as the one exposed close to the monastery in the area of the Hospital. More specifically, the samples show matching texture and mineralogy typical of rather compact, very fine to fine sedimentary rock rich in carbonate fragments and micritic matrix, cemented predominantly by sparry calcite (Fig. 14). In addition to the carbonate rock fragments, the most common detrital grains are quartz, altered feldspars, muscovite, biotite, chlorite, as well as altered pyroxenes and volcanic rock fragments. There are no remains of fragmented organisms. A series of characteristic opaque minerals and ferruginous nodules were also detected in all samples, such as nodules of magnetite, ilmenite, and other unidentified iron oxides. In addition, analysis with scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) detected rutile, epidote, and rare zircon and monazite among the accessory minerals.

In a region known for its complex geological history and varied outcrops, the stone is unique in its characteristics because it contains heavy and ferromagnetic minerals originating from the erosion of a basic volcanic intrusion (ophites) within the Keuper saline diapir and deposited almost exclusively in this nearby sedimentary basin, where the siliciclastic rocks were formed.⁴⁴ Their presence in all the studied samples supports the conclusion that the objects were all carved from the same type of sedimentary stone.

The findings on the Les Avellanes stone become significant evidence for the identification of a local workshop in charge of carving the pantheon in the early fourteenth century. By contrast, several sculptures in the region, stylistically related to the Urgell tombs, do not employ this specific stone for carving. For example, the fourteenth-century tomb of Arnau Mir de Tost, an ancestor of Ermengol X, carved for the collegiate of Sant Pere d’Àger and kept today in the parish church of Sant Vicenç, is carved with another type of limestone, extracted from the Àger valley. The tomb of Ramon de Tárrega preserved in the church of Sant Llorenç in Lleida is made with calcarenite from the quarries near the city of Lleida, as are the stylistically related tombs of the Montcada family, including Guillem Ramon de Montcada from the monastery of Avinganya in the Museum of Lleida and the male and female recumbents from the pantheon of the Montcada family in the San Pedro chapel of the Old Cathedral of Lleida.⁴⁵

The only tomb utilizing Les Avellanes stone outside the immediate Bellpuig pantheon is the smaller tomb of a boy identified as Ermengol IX (died 1243), originally buried in the parish church of Santa Maria in Castelló de Farfanya and now at the Met Cloisters (Fig. 4).⁴⁶ Separated from the rest of its sculptural monument, the effigy was originally joined to a sarcophagus supported by two lions, now housed at the Museu de la Noguera (Fig. 15).⁴⁷ The fragment of a pinnacle at the same Catalan museum further indicates the existence of an architectural frame for the ensemble. Given the ten-kilometer distance between the two churches, and the existence of adequate stone outcrops around Farfanya, the use of Les Avellanes stone for the tombs and in Santa Maria de Castelló speaks strongly of a related contract among the group of Urgell funerary monuments. The commission was arguably promoted by Ermengol X, whose father, Àlvar de Cabrera, was made Count of Urgell after the premature death of his brother Ermengol IX. While the effigy of a boy follows the Les Avellanes tombs’ general artistic lineage, some differences in style transpire on the sarcophagus, possibly indicating a different workshop. More specifically, the representation of the Urgell shields with ornate borders in high relief differs from the Urgell group, but they can be found on other regional tombs, such as the fourteenth-century effigy of Arnau Mir de Tost mentioned above.⁴⁸

Tomb Assemblage

If all stones constituting the Urgell pantheon belong to a single local origin near Les Avellanes, the physical assemblage of the tombs’ individual parts as they are displayed at the Cloisters remains questionable. Nothing shows inconsistency of fabrication or joining for the tomb of Àlvar de Cabrera or the double tombs of Àlvar and Cecília. The composite tomb of Ermengol X, however, contains some contradictory evidence (Fig. 1). Notable inconsistencies exist between Abbot Monfar’s seventeenth-century description of a fully armed effigy, accompanied by mourners and clergymen celebrating a mass behind, and Caresmar’s eighteenth-century accounts of an effigy dressed in secular clothing and celebrated by priests above and mourners behind, a configuration that apparently describes the current tomb at the Cloisters.⁴⁹

The sarcophagus’s ornate micro-architecture stands out among the Urgell tombs, which display simpler designs of framed shields. The tomb’s heavy protrusion over its base is also questionable, as is the tight fit between the effigy slab and the leaf decorations on the sarcophagus border below. As was observed by art historian Timothy Husband, the lengths of the unfinished portions on the lateral sides of both effigy and sarcophagus, originally hidden from view in their original niches, do not conform to each other.⁵⁰ The effigy displays carved details of the pillow and angel halfway through the slab’s full depth, and the sarcophagus reveals two monks under individual arches only through its first quarter.⁵¹ For the tomb ensemble not to present equally finished protruding surfaces to the congregation is an unlikely eventuality. As mentioned earlier, written and visual accounts of the church interior point to the possible presence of more tombs at the monastery of equal if not more sumptuous quality, to which the ornate sarcophagus may have belonged.

The survival of an arch with numerous small Urgell escutcheons documented by Demotte in his Paris gallery provides relevant additional evidence for the existence of more tombs at Les Avellanes (Fig. 16). The arch’s reconstruction in the dealer’s showroom staging the single tomb of Àlvar, now at the Cloisters, may be the only remaining evidence of another tomb from the Urgell pantheon. The fact that the arch was rebuilt in the dealer’s gallery, with possible restored sections, implies that the wall in which it was embedded was severely compromised prior to its shipment to Paris. To date, neither the detailed list of the pieces that left Les Avellanes nor the Demotte archives at the Louvre provide further information on the present location of this arch.

Polychromy

Investigation of the tombs’ polychromy and the possible paint found on their architectural surrounds constitutes a last but important aspect of material analysis. In general, as determined by objects conservator Beth Edelstein, no particular painting material or technique seems to distinguish the various tomb elements, either from each other or from contemporary monuments.⁵² The original color scheme of Ermengol X’s sarcophagus is reminiscent, for example, of the polychrome stone tomb of Peter III of Aragon in the monastery of Santes Creus. It exhibits strong contrasting colors of various reds (red glaze over vermilion and red lead), azurite blue, and gold accents on the tomb’s architectural framework.

Paint analysis, however, confirms the authenticity of various sections constituting the Urgell pantheon, including the sarcophagi of all the tombs and parts of their architectural surrounds. Medieval and later paint layers found on the double tombs and the sepulchral monument of Àlvar de Cabrera firmly date these elements to the fourteenth century (Figs. 2 and 3). In the case of Cecília’s coffin, for example, a medieval sequence of colors composed of a red glaze over a vermilion layer, covered by a layer of smalt blue dating to at least the late fifteenth century, provides evidence of the cumulative history of this sculptural element.⁵³ Similarly, traces of paint in the tombs’ architectural niches, including red, gold, ocher, green, and blue confirm dating of some of the stone blocks used in the transept chapels, the carved finish of which was discussed earlier.⁵⁴

Of interest in the tombs’ original palette is the presence of a dark red pigment, applied as a base color on the garments of many figures, especially on the apostle figures of Ermengol X’s sarcophagus, on the mourners behind, and on the mass attendants in the relief above. This particular dark red is also found on the garments of Àlvaro and Cecília, as well as on the armored effigy of Àlvar de Cabrera. SEM-EDS analysis coupled with X-ray diffraction analysis has identified the presence of plattnerite, a black lead dioxide (ß-PbO~2~) formed from the darkening and degradation of red lead, usually associated with its exposure to alkaline or acidic environments, air pollutants, or sometimes bacterial activity.⁵⁵ The transformation of red lead into black lead dioxide has affected the layer in its entirety, not just its top layer, indicating a complete transformation under adverse environmental conditions. As previously stated, prior to the modern reconstructions, the church interior was in ruinous state, conditions specified to cause the darkening of the red paint layers.

The sequence of paint on the tombs also reveals the presence of two overpainting campaigns over the original fourteenth-century polychromy. The first, most cohesively preserved on the sarcophagus with Christ and apostles, is characterized by the use of orpiment over the original gold, as well as mixtures of indigo and smalt, likely corresponding to the early eighteenth-century refurbishments at the monastery.⁵⁶ The second campaign is a thick lime layer applied both on the tombs and their architectural surrounds in March 1790, which was removed from the church walls in the twentieth century (Fig. 17).⁵⁷ Other than these two discrete overpainting campaigns, the lack of regular maintenance of the sculptures’ painted program corresponds to the monastery’s financial difficulties and abandonment over centuries.

Finally, the paint’s various states of preservation on the different elements composing the sarcophagus of Ermengol X confirm the suspected more-recent assemblage of this monument. The sarcophagus displays ample traces of the thick whitewash mentioned above, with earlier layers of paint underneath. By contrast, the effigy has lost most of its polychromy, with only traces of paint from the original and first overpainting campaigns. The relief with clerics above displays uneven surfaces, from well-preserved original decorations at the right to eighteenth-century paint on adjacent figures at the left.

Conclusion

The utilization of the same stone for the tombs and their architectural setting, the presence of related carving programs on the church’s façade and the tombs’ design, and remnants of medieval polychromy found on the tombs and their surroundings, speak of a primordial link between the sculptural pantheon and the building, making the Urgell tombs vivid participants in their medieval locus sanctus (holy place). The tombs, skillfully painted with materials matching their carved splendor, were an accomplished ensemble in the early fourteenth century, performed by sculptors with access to the Les Avellanes stone quarries, located on the monastic grounds. Scientific examination of the stone and quarry of origin becomes significant evidence for identification of a local workshop in charge of carving the pantheon. Although embedded in modern renovations that occurred at a time when restoration in Catalonia was undertaken to reconstruct history rather than to preserve signs of age, the architectural surrounds of the monastery of Bellpuig de Les Avellanes reveal that at least a section of the church was completed by the time of Ermengol X’s death in 1314, in a space sufficient to house the Urgell tombs.

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Author Bios

Lucretia Kargère is a Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters, New York; Ramon Solé is a Conservator-Restorer, adjunct to the Centre de Restauració de Béns Mobles de Catalunya, Barcelona; Federico Caró is a Research Scientist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; José Luis Prada is Professor of Geological Science at the Escola Superior de Conservació i Restauració de Béns, Culturals de Catalunya; Núria Guasch-Ferré is at the Departament d’Arts i Conservació Restauració, Facultat de Belles Arts, Universitat de Barcelona.

1. James Rorimer, “A Fourteenth Century Catalan Tomb at the Cloisters and Related Monuments,” Art Bulletin 13, no. 4 (Dec. 1931): 409–37; Timothy Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis’ or ‘Sti. Nicolai et Fontium Amenorum’: The Making of Monastic History,” in The Cloisters: Studies in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary, ed. E. C. Parker (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992), 354–83; Gener Gonzalvo i Bou, Història del panteó dels comtes d’Urgell: Els sepulcres del monestir de Bellpuig de les Avellanes (Lleida: Universitat de Lleida, 2007); Francesca Español i Bertran, “El panteó dels comtes d’Urgell al monestir de Bellpuig de les Avellanes,” in L’art gòtic a Catalunya: Escultura I. La configuració de l’estil (Barcelona: Pladevall Font, 2007), 80–87; Francesc Fité i Llevot, “El Monestir premonstratés de Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes, panteó comtal,” in De Bellpuig a Bellpuig Els premonstratesos, de les Avellanes a Artà, Miscel.lània 13 (Palma: Departament de Cultura i Patrimoni, 2019), 47–99. ↩︎

2. Eduardo Corredera Gutiérrez, Noticia de los condes de Urgel (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 1973), 141; Timothy Husband and Charles Little, Europe in the Middle Ages (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987), 107; Gener Gonzalvo i Bou, Història del panteó, 22. ↩︎

3. The general chronology is as follows: 1146, first foundations of monastery in Mont Malet at Bellpuig Vell for a community of hermits; 1167, second foundations of monastery at Fonts Amenes, current location of Santa Maria de Bellpuig de Les Avellanes two kilometers east of Bellpuig Vell; 1167–68, establishment of the religious community order of Sant Norbert, also known as Premonstratentians, a project initiated by Guillem I d’Anglesola (died ca. 1180) with donations by Ermengol VII (ca. 1120/30–1184) and his wife Doña Dulcia (ca. 1140–1209); 1168, church consecration; thirteenth-century completion of cloister; 1303–14, renovation of first church including presbytery and transept chapels by Ermengol X (1268–1314), along with commission of the tomb effigies; 1346–53, Black Death, marking the serious decline of the monastery along with economic difficulties related to land and water rights; 1701–13, heavy destruction of monastery during the War of Spanish Succession; 1718–36, repairs of abbot’s palace, living quarters, refectory, kitchen, and cloisters’ arches; 1833–44, Carlist wars, with monks’ abandonment of monastery; 1835–37, confiscation of Mendizábal, with privatization of Les Avellanes; 1906, sale of tomb effigies; 1910, Marist Brothers recuperate monastery; 1924, construction of new living quarters by architect Jeroni Martorell i Terrats (1876–1951); 1933, restoration plans for church by Josep Goday i Casals (1882–1936); Spanish Civil War (1936–39); 1960s, completion of the monastery’s restoration by Alejandro Ferrant Vázquez (1897–1976).

   For destruction of the archives in Catalonia, see Gener Gonzalvo i Bou and Paul Freedman, “The Dissolution of Catalan Monasteries and the Fate of their Archives: The Example of Poblet,” Mediterranean Studies 9 (2000): 183–201. ↩︎

4. For technical analysis of the tombs’ polychromy, see Beth Edelstein, Silvia A. Centeno, and Mark Wypyski, “Illuminating a Complex History: The Materials and Techniques of the Tombs of Urgell at the Cloisters,” Studies in Conservation 51 (2006): 204–10. ↩︎

5. Gonzalvo i Bou, Història del panteó, 25. ↩︎

6. Jaume Caresmar, “Historia de Santa María de Bellpuig de las Avellanas, 1773,” trans. and ed. Eduardo Corredera, in Historia de Santa Maria de Bellpuig de las Avellanes en Cataluñam del Orden Canónigos Regulares Premonstratenses de San Augustín (Balaguer: Gráficas Romeu, 1977). Caresmar’s written history of the monastery, De Rebus Ecclesiae Sanctae Mariae Bellipodiensis Avellanarum Ordinis Canonicorum Regularium S. Augustini Praemonstratensium, now lost, is transcribed in Corredera. See Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 379 n11. ↩︎

7. Francesca Español i Bertran, “Els Comtes d’Urgell I El Seu Panteó Dinàstic,” in El Comtat d’Urgell (Lleida: Universitat de Lleida, 1995), 149–50; Español i Bertran, “El panteó dels comtes d’Urgell,” 80–87. ↩︎

8. Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 379 n11. For a history of the monastery compiled between 1641 and 1652, see Diego Monfar i Sors, Historia de los Condes de Urgel, vols. 9 and 10 (Barcelona: Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón, 1853); See Caresmar, “Historia de Santa María de Bellpuig de las Avellanas, 1773”. ↩︎

9. José Pleyan de Porta and Frederic Renyé i Viladot, “Monasterio de Las Avellanas” in Album histórich, pintoresch y monumental de Lleyda y sa provincia, vol. 28 (Lleida: Joseph Sol Torrens, 1882), 262. ↩︎

10. Mira Leroy, Materiales y documentos de arte españiol, Barcelona 1 (Barcelona: A. Parera, 1900–1901), pl. V. ↩︎

11. Christine Vivet-Peclet, “Les sculptures du Louvre acquises auprès de Georges-Joseph Demotte: De la polémique à la rehabilitation,” Revue du Louvre 3 (2013): 68. ↩︎

12. Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 378–79. ↩︎

13. See note 6. For other archival photographs of the tombs in their original setting, see Husband, 364-365, figs. 10 and 11. ↩︎

14. Español I Bertran, El Comtt d’Urgell; Alberto Velasco González and Francesc Fité, “Los condes de Urgell, promotores artisticos,” in O rei o res: La fi del comtat d’Urgell (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2018), 367–69. ↩︎

15. Gonzalvo i Bou, Història del panteó, 23, strongly contests the conclusion that the tombs’ past attributions were retained. ↩︎

16. Gonzalvo i Bou and Freedman, “Dissolution of Catalan Monasteries.” ↩︎

17. Gonzalvo i Bou, Història del panteó, 67. ↩︎

18. For Ruiz, see María José Martínez Ruiz, “Raimundo y Luis Ruiz: Pioneros del mercado de antigüedades espanñolas en EE UU,” Berceo 161 (2011): 49–87. ↩︎

19. J. Miguel Merino de Caceres, “Expolios de arte religioso,” Descubrir el arte 34 (2001): 112; Francisco Fernández Pardo, Dispersion y destrucción del patrimonio artistíco español (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, Gobierno de La Rioja, Junta de Castilla y León, and Caja Duero, 2007), 4:57–68. The tomb ensemble of Ermengol X (then identified as Ermengol VII) was first displayed at the George Grey Barnard museum; see Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 356, fig. 2. ↩︎

20. Anonym, Solemne Retorno de los restos de los condes soberanos de Urgel al cenobio de Santa María de Bellpuig de las Avellanes, 30 de abril de 1967, Balaguer: Romeu, 1967. ↩︎

21. Francesc Fité i Llevot, “El Monestir de Santa Maria de Bellpuig: L’arquitectura d’època medieval i del segle XVIII,” unpublished manuscript. ↩︎

22. Ramon Solé and Jaime Salguero, “Memoria de la intervención de conservación y restauración del claustro románico del monasterio de Santa María de Bellpuig de Les Avellanes,” 2016, unpublished manuscript, 8–9, Institute Germans Maristes Provincia de L’hermitage. ↩︎

23. See note 3. ↩︎

24. For detailed photographs of the cloisters, see https://www.monestirs.cat/monst/nogue/cno20bell01.htm (accessed May 29, 2020). ↩︎

25. J. Puig y Cadalfalch, A. De Falguera, and J. Goday, L’arquitectura romànica a Catalunya (Barcelona: Institut d’estudis Catalans 1909–18), 467–69, fig. 647, online at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435022797351&view=1up&seq=475; Eduardo Gutiérrez Corredera and and Josep Giralt, “Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes,” in La Noguera, Catalunya romànica 17 (Barcelona: Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1994), 397. ↩︎

26. Josep Trench i Odena, El monasterio de Bellpuig de Les Avellanes, desde 1708 a 1738 (Lleida: Instituto de Estudios Ilerdenses, 1975), 143–45. ↩︎

27. Martorell was an architect in Antoni Gaudi’s (1852–1926) circle who also used concrete. See R. Grima, J. Gómez Serrano, and A. Aguado, “The Use of Concrete in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia,” International Journal of Architectural Heritage 1, no. 4 (2007): 366–79. ↩︎

28. Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 377. An eighteenth-century repair in a medieval style would be anachronistic. The movement of Catalan architectural renovations that promoted restoration in a medieval style dates to the nineteenth century, led by Elies Rogent (1821–1897), Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850–1923), and Josep Puig i Cadafalch (1867–1956). ↩︎

29. Edward Mills, “A Group of Catalan Fourteenth-Century Churches,” Art Bulletin 19, no. 3 (Sept. 1937): 403, fig. 2. ↩︎

30. For an image of the armorial device on the sarcophagus, see Rorimer, “Fourteenth Century Catalan Tomb,” 418, fig. 11. ↩︎

31. Monfar i Sors, Historia de los Condes de Urgel, 406. ↩︎

32. Eduardo Corredera Gutiérrez and Josep Giralt, “Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes,” in La Noguera, Catalunya romànica 17 (Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1994), 102; Francesc Tamarit Cullerés, “Un dels llinatges fundadors del Monestir de Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes,” Ilerda 25 (1974): 121–32. ↩︎

33. Ramon Solé, “Projecte de conservació i restauració de la portada nord de l’esglesia de Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes,” 2020, unpublished manuscript, Insititut Germans Maristes Provincia de l’Hermitage. ↩︎

34. Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 361, questions the authenticity of these sarcophagi. See also Edelstein, Centeno, and Wypyski, “Illuminating a Complex History,” 208. ↩︎

35. Rorimer, “Fourteenth Century Catalan Tomb,” 128; Español, “El panteó dels comtes d’Urgell,” 87–92. ↩︎

36. Mills, “Group of Catalan Fourteenth-Century Churches,” 403; Emma Liaño Martínez, Contribución al estudio del gótico en Tarragona (Tarragona: Instituto de Estudios Tarraconenses Ramón Berenguer IV, 1976), 126. ↩︎

37. Tom Nickson, “The Royal Tombs of Santes Creus: Negotiating the Royal Image in Medieval Iberia,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 72, no. 1 (2009): 12, fig. 9. ↩︎

38. See Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 364–65, figs. 10 and 11. ↩︎

39. Jennifer S. Alexander, “Masons’ Marks and Stone Bonding,” in The Archaeology of Cathedrals, (Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1996), 219–36; Therese Martin, “Reading the Walls: Masons’ Marks and the Archaeology of Architecture at San Isidor, León,” in Church, State, Vellum, and Stone: Essays on Medieval Spain in Honour of J. Williams (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 373–412. ↩︎

40. Annette Münchmeyer, “The Masons’ Marks in the Western Part of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela: An Approach to Its Construction History,” Construction History 28, no. 2 (2013): 14, fig. 10. ↩︎

41. Thin sections were examined by polarized light microscopy and by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) both at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Department of Geology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. ↩︎

42. Oral testimony by Josep Giné (b. 1933), a stonemason and workman in quarries; field visits July 1, 2018, and March 3, 2019. ↩︎

43. Eloi Saula Briansó, Josep Maria Samsó i Escolà, and Joan Picart, “Regional Geological Map of Catalonia, Os de Balaguer. 1:25000. Nº 327-2-2(64-26),” Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia (2008). ↩︎

44. V. Sánchez Cella and J. A. Garcia Anquela, “Igneous Rocks of Alpine Age Associated with Keuper Materials in the Iberian Mountains, near Teruel (Spain),” Estudios geológicos 40 (1984): 23–32. ↩︎

45. Rosa M. Esbert, R. M. Marcos, Jorge Ordaz, Modesto Montoto, Luis M. Suarez del Rio, Vicente G. Ruiz de Argandoña, Lope Calleja, F. Javier Alonso, and Àngel Rodriguez-Rey, “Petrografía, propiedades físicas y durabilidad de algunas rocas utilizadas en el patrimonio monumental de Catalunya, España,” Consejo Superiro de Investigaciones cinetíficas 14, no. 214 (1989): 37–47. ↩︎

46. Velasco González and F. Fité, “Los condes de Urgell,” PAGES; P. Meyers and L. Van Zelst, “Neutron Activation Analysis of Limestone Objects: A Pilot Study,” Radiochimica acta 23–26 (1977): 199. The effigy was sold in 1975 at Brimo de Laroussilhe in Paris. ↩︎

47. See Velasco González and Fité, “Los condes de Urgell,” 202–3, illus. 10 (Museu de la Noguera, inv. 1488 and 607). ↩︎

48. Español i Bertran, “El panteó dels comtes d’Urgell,” 86. The sarcophagus was originally at the Lleida Museum (inv. 1488). ↩︎

49. Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 361–62. ↩︎

50. See Rorimer, “Fourteenth Century Catalan Tomb,” 415, fig. 7. ↩︎

51. See Husband, “‘Sancti Nicolai de fontibus amoenis,’” 359, fig. 5, and 366, fig. 12. ↩︎

52. Edelstein, Centeno, and Wypyski, “Illuminating a Complex History,” 205–8. ↩︎

53. Edelstein, Centeno, and Wypyski, “Illuminating a Complex History,” 209; Ashok Roy, “Smalt,” in Artist’s Pigment: A Handbook of their History and Characteristics, Volume 2 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1993), 114–15. ↩︎

54. Examination of the traces of paint was undertaken under head loupe magnification, but no scientific analysis was performed to confirm the pigments used. ↩︎

55. Alessia Coccato, Luc Moens, and Peter Vandenabeele, “On the Stability of Mediaeval Inorganic Pigments: A Literature Review of the Effect of Climate, Material Selection, Biological Activity, Analysis and Conservation Treatments,” Heritage Science 5, no. 12 (2017): 1–25; S. Aze, J.-M. Vallet, V. Detalle, O. Grauby, and A. Baronnet, “Chromatic Alterations of Red Lead Pigments in Artworks: A Review,” Phase Transitions 81, no. 2–3 (2008): 145–54. ↩︎

56. For a more detailed description of paint layers, see Edelstein, Centeno, and Wypyski, “Illuminating a Complex History,” 209. ↩︎

57. Limewash was applied on the church’s walls on March 7, 1790. See Eduardo Corredera Gutiérrez, Páginas de historia catalana: Santa María de Bellpuig de les Avellanes (Catalonia: Institut de Germans Maristes-Catalunya, 1997), 233. ↩︎