BRINGING HERITAGE CLOSER. OLITE, ROYAL SEAT

30 August 2007

Evocation and reality: the image of Olite in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
D. Ignacio Urricelqui. Chair de Patrimonio

The lecture focused on the image of Olite in the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among which those dedicated to the Royal Palace took on special prominence. Through engravings, drawings, photographs and paintings, the interest of artists, both local and foreign, for this building was appreciated.

This tour began in the Romantic period at the hands of travelers and artists who saw in the ruins of the Palace, apart from its aesthetic value, the testimony of a glorious past coinciding with the centuries of the Old Kingdom. Writers such as Patricio de la Escosura or Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, and artists such as Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, who dedicated a lithograph to the building in his España Artística y Monumental, contributed to this process by which the dying ruins became part of the Spanish monumental imaginary.

Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, View of the castle of Olite, mid-19th century.

Juan Iturralde y Suit's work , report on the ruins of the Royal Palace of Olite, carried out together with Aniceto Lagarde and commissioned by the Commission of Historical and Artistic Monuments of Navarre between 1869 and 1870, was decisive in raising awareness of the historical and artistic value of the building. Both its text and its images, due to both authors -with Iturralde playing a leading role- took for granted the importance of the palace remains that were on the verge of being demolished.

Engravings and photographs, published in magazines such as La Ilustración Española y Americana or books such as those by Julio Nombela (Crónica general de España..., Madrid, 1865), Juan Mañé y Flaquer(El Oasis. Viaje al País de los Fueros, Barcelona, 1878), or Pedro de Madrazo(España, sus monumentos y artes, su naturaleza e historia, Barcelona, 1886) favored the diffusion of the palace ruins in the last third of the 19th century. Likewise, photographers such as Laurent or, more locally, Altadill, were involved in this process. 

project of restoration of the Royal Palace of Olite, by Javier Yárnoz, 1925.

With the turn of the century, the Diputación de Navarra acquired the ruins and promoted their restoration, with the support of the Monuments Commission of Navarra. This would begin in the 1920s, with a competition for projects that went in favor of the Yárnoz Larrosa brothers. From the 1930s onwards and, above all, since the creation in 1940 of the Institución Príncipe de Viana, the Palace would be the object of innumerable works aimed at its structural and aesthetic recovery. The photographs of José Ortíz Echagüe or Nicolás Esparza, and the paintings of Jesús Basiano or Jesús Lasterra reflect what was achieved in the different years. Once the process was completed, Navarrese painters such as Miguel Ángel Echauri or Pedro Salaberri, would reflect in their works the grandeur of the old fortress of the kings of Navarre.

Jesús Lasterra, visit de Olite, 1960's.