Page 21 - ART AND NATURE IN PREHISTORY. THE COLLECTION OF TRACINGS OF CAVE ART OF THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES

commissiona entirely spanish commission e Commission of Paleontological and Prehistorical Researches was created at the proposal of Eduardo Hernández-Pacheco for the study and copy of rock art found throughout the Spanish geography. Leading gures from the elds of science and archaeology such as Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Cerralbo Marquis or the Vega de la Sella Count strongly in uenced its creation in 1912, sponsored by, among others, the Duke of Alba. e venue of the Commission was the National Museum of Natural History, whose director, Ignacio Bolívar y Urrutia, was one of the main architects of the creation of the institution. e Cerralbo Marquis, also a renowned archaeologist, was the president of the Commission. Eduardo Hernández-Pacheco himself was the Director of Works and Publications. e drawer and photographer Juan Cabré Aguiló was responsible for the technical direction. Another artist, Francisco Benítez Mellado, joined in 1915 and stayed until the end. After the death of the Cerralbo Marquis in 1922, E. Hernández-Pacheco took over the presidency until all the Commission’s activities were interrupted by the Spanish civil war, never to be resumed. e seals of the Council for the Extension of Studies (JAE), predecessor body of today’s Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), to which the Museum belonged, can be observed in the exhibited items. In some cases even part of the wall sediment has been preserved, as it was stuck to the paper during the copying process executed by the artists.art and nature in prehistory. the collection of rock art tracings of the mncn021