Dr Robert McManners, chairman of Bishop Auckland Civic Society and a leader of the campaign, tells of the importance of the Zurbarans in their home in Auckland Castle.

IT is a great relief to report the wonderful news that the set of Zurbaran paintings, Jacob and his Twelve Sons, will now remain in Auckland Castle, their home for the past two-and-a-half centuries – and where they belong.

With the Long Dining Room, where they alone hang, purposely redesigned by Bishop Richard Trevor, the pictures constitute one of the most profound experiences in religious art and one of Europe’s great art treasures.

Many people have worked very long and very hard to secure their Auckland future and, I feel, now is a time for celebration, but not for triumphalism.

This news is surely a positive outcome for all parties involved because the paintings represent so much more and have a much greater worth than merely their potential monetary value in an art sale.

The paintings in Auckland Castle are a powerful symbol of Judaism and, although Bishop Trevor’s entreaty for religious tolerance, ethnic integration and social equality – fundamental human issues – was made when he personally purchased the pictures in 1756, that plea remains highly relevant today.

This collection is an integral part of our region’s rich and powerful religious tradition, a heritage which includes the re-introduction of Christianity to this country and its defence through the might of the Palatine of Durham, along with the sacred tradition of Cuthbert, the most revered of all Anglo-Saxon saints and of Bede, the nation’s earliest historian.

Bishop Trevor bought the paintings after the Jewish Naturalisation Act (1753), which he and his fellow bishops had sponsored, was repealed in 1754. The Act gave disenfranchised immigrant Jews, often escaping persecution in the countries of their birth, the same rights as those born in England. The unpopularity of this Act is manifest in William Hogarth’s contemporaneous satirical cartoons, in the stoning of the Bishop of Norwich in his own cathedral and in the petitioning for the Act’s repeal by the Lord Mayor of London.

In giving the pictures to Auckland Castle in his lifetime, as his successor Bishop Shute Barrington tells us, surely it was Bishop Trevor’s intention that the paintings stayed in the castle in perpetuity.

The Church Commissioners, who took over the ownership of the Church of England’s see houses after the Second World War, apparently interpret their role solely as that of administering the Church’s finances and, surprisingly, not in administering its heritage.

Given their stance one can understand their decision to sell, but surely some things have a value that can not be expressed in monetary terms alone. Patrimony of this nature cannot be bought and sold. Had these paintings been dispersed through the salerooms, the collection could never have been retrieved.

Its vital message from history would have been lost. We are merely the current custodians of our past heritage which many previous generations have seen fit to conserve.

To my mind, we should think extremely carefully before deciding to dispose of such tradition for financial gain and I, personally, am delighted that a way has been found to allow the paintings to remain in Auckland Castle, the home of the Bishops of Durham for more than 800 years.

The Commissioners have been able to “realise their asset” which we are told when invested will provide clergy for ten poor parishes.

While this sum represents a tiny fraction of the church’s assets, I am sure in considering the allocation of the proceeds the Church of England is aware that four of the ten “poorest wards”, as assessed by social deprivation indices, are in County Durham and it is recorded that two of those are in Bishop Auckland.

IT was 1997 when the Bishop Auckland Civic Society was first involved with the Zurbaran paintings. The society held lengthy correspondence with the Church Commissioners when selling the pictures was first mooted. As a result, the sale was deferred, but a decision to sell was taken in 2001 only to be deferred again in 2005 following a meeting in Auckland Castle with the Commissioners, the majority of whom had not previously had the opportunity of seeing the paintings.

I was first introduced to the paintings as a very small boy and frankly found them frightening.

They still demand respect on entering the Long Dining Room. In overtly displaying these pictures in the home of one of the most prominent representatives of the Church of England, Bishop Trevor was inviting his eminent visitors to consider their own stance on the plight of immigrant Jews.

Trevor was not the only one to have risked his livelihood and reputation over this series of pictures. Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbaran painted this group in the 1640s with his fame at its zenith.

A committed Catholic, his livelihood was almost entirely commissions from the established church, yet he meticulously painted this symbol of Judaism at a time when the practice of the Jewish religion was outlawed by Papal Bull and enforced by the Spanish Inquisition.

It is known that Zurbaran had sympathy for down-trodden Jewish people in his local community, but his risk to reputation, livelihood and even life seems extraordinary.

It is perhaps a fitting irony that both Zurbaran and Bishop Trevor found themselves in disagreement with the establishment with regard to these paintings. Many people, both locally, nationally and internationally, have been very involved, often in a quiet way, to bring about this resolution and they are all deserving of gratitude.

I am delighted with the result. The task now is how to make the paintings accessible and reach the public audience they deserve.

􀁧 Dr Robert McManners is the author of The Zurbarans at Auckland Castle, which is available from Bishop Auckland Town Hall for £5.