Fragments of Masterpiece Tomb of Renaissance-Era Spanish Duke Were Found in the Garbage Dump

Fragments of Masterpiece Tomb of Renaissance-Era Spanish Duke Were Found in the Garbage Dump

In 1904, the Convent of San Francisco in Cuéllar, Spain collapsed, burying more than just stone and mortar. Under the rubble lay a masterpiece of early Spanish Renaissance sculpture—the alabaster funerary complex commissioned by Beltrán de la Cueva, the powerful first Duke of Alburquerque. While art and antiquities dealer Lionel Harris sold two intact tombs from the complex to New York’s Hispanic Society, the rest of the ensemble vanished into…