Spain: Fight Over a Lady

Legend has it that the painting was once acquired by Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco as a gift for Adolf Hitler. If so, it was never delivered, and since then the 1805 portrait of a reclining beauty holding a Greek lyre has rarely been seen in public. That obscurity is now a thing of the past for . the Marquesa de Santa Cruz, a 54-in. by 78-in. painting by the famed Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes. Christie's, the London auction house, expects Goya's Marquesa to fetch a record price of more than $10 million when it is auctioned on April 11. But the Spanish government wants it back pronto.

At issue is Madrid's claim that the Marquesa left Spain in 1983 in violation of export laws. In that year the painting was sold to British Art Collector Lord Wimborne by a Mallorca businessman for an undisclosed sum. Spain says the export documents that accompanied the artwork were spurious, a charge that both Wimborne and Christie's deny. A London art dealer involved in the sale to Wimborne apparently was told that the necessary export permit was expedited by a Spanish official who owed the Marquesa's former owner a "favor." Christie's insists that the auction will take place as scheduled.