Congress reserves 76,000 euros for the portrait of Ana Pastor, who has already chosen the painter Hernán Cortés

The author has already immortalized Luis Fernanda Rudi and has two other works in the Lower House

MADRID, 16 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The current second vice president of Congress, the 'popular' Ana Pastor, has decided that the painter Hernán Cortés Moreno make her the portrait with which she will remember her time as the Presidency of the Lower House -since she held between 2016 and 2019- -, a table for which a base budget of 76,450 euros has been set, including VAT.

This will be the fourth work by Hernán Cortes to be hung in Congress and the second that will form part of the so-called Gallery of Presidents, where the portraits of all the people who have exercised this responsibility from the Cortes of Cádiz are. And it is that the first woman in charge of the institution, the also 'popular' Luisa Fernanda Rudi, also entrusted Cortés with the task of immortalizing her as president.

In addition, the painter from Cádiz is the author of the polyptych with which the seven 'fathers' of the Constitution are remembered in the Constitutional Chamber of Congress and also of the portrait of Felipe VI who presides over the Hall of Ministers, where the Board holds its meetings of the camera.

During the presentation of that work in May 2019, Hernán Cortes joked that Congress has already become his "second home" due to the number of his works that the institution treasures.

As stated in the specifications approved by the Congressional Board, to which Europa Press has had access, the painting will be paid from the Chamber's surplus fund, which as of March 31, 2022, closing of the 2021 financial year, has an amount of 108.24 million euros.

Specifically, the base budget for the tender amounts to 69,500 euros to which 10% VAT must be added, for a total of 76,450.00 euros. According to the Chamber, this amount is adjusted to the market price of portraits of artists of similar dimensions and to what has been paid in the last 15 years for those made of previous presidents.

The maximum period of execution of the contract will be three months from the signing of the contract. The adjudication has not yet been formally approved, but the forecast is that the portrait of the second woman that will form part of the Gallery of Presidents can be hung before the end of the legislature next December.

Due to the singularity of the object of the contract, which has as its object the creation or acquisition of a work of art, it can only be entrusted to a specific artist, through a negotiated procedure without publicity, so the only evaluation criterion will be the economic offer. , which is evaluable by formulas.

The cheapest portrait of the presidents of those hung in recent years is of the socialist Patxi López, who presided over the Chamber for the five months that the failed legislature lasted that followed the general elections of December 2015. Its author is the illustrator and musician Elisa Pérez Ruiz and cost 10,300 euros, VAT included, 5,000 euros less than initially budgeted.

The second cheapest also bears the signature of a woman, the prestigious photographer Cristina García Rodero, who was chosen for this work by the late Socialist Manuel Marín, who presided over the Chamber between 2000 and 2004. It is the only photograph that hangs in this gallery and cost 24,780 euros.

López's predecessor, the 'popular' Jesús Posada, who presided over the Chamber during the legislature of the absolute majority of Mariano Rajoy, uncovered his painting in September 2017. It is a work by the painter Ricardo Sanz López, which cost 66,000 euros .

The most expensive painting in recent years was that of the socialist José Bono -82,600 euros--, a portrait painted by Bernardo Pérez Torrens from Madrid that was hung in July 2015 in the presence of the honoree and Posada, but without means of communication.

The portraits of Bono and Marín were budgeted the same day by the Congress Table and their price generated controversy since Spain was immersed in the midst of an economic crisis. The issue even led to a parliamentary debate.

It was in the Culture Commission of the Congress where the then group of the Plural Left (IU-ICV-CHA) agreed on a non-legal proposal with the PSOE to urge the Government to implement "other methods of elaboration" of the official portraits that were "less onerous for the State" and was committed, specifically, to extending the use of photographs. The initiative was rejected by the PP, which then had an absolute majority.