ABSTRACT The four Spanish limestone tombs of Urgell at the Cloisters in New York were once believed to have been commissioned in 1314 by Ermengol X, Count of Urgell, for a memorial chapel at the monastery of Las Avellanas in northern Spain. Historical evidence suggests instead that the tombs were not at the monastery until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and may be assemblages of fourteenth-century and later tomb sculpture brought to the monastery from other sites. Results of a materi- als study support a fourteenth-century origin and a common local source for all elements of the tombs, and provide evidence that the four tombs in their current configurations were in place together at the end of the seventeenth century. However, they also strongly suggest a much earlier, though not necessarily original, relationship among some of the various elements, particularly in the large composed tomb identified as that of Ermengol VII. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Die vier spanischen Kalksteingräber aus Urgell in The Cloisters in New York wurden angeblich 1314 durch Ermengol X, Graf von Urgell, für eine Gedächtniskapelle im Kloster von Las Avellanas in Nordspanien in Auftrag gegeben. Historische Belege lassen jedoch vermuten, dass die Gräber erst im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert in das Kloster gebracht wurden und eine Zusammenfügung von Grabskulpturen aus dem 14. Jahrhundert sowie aus späterer Zeit sein könnten, die von anderen Orten in das Kloster gebracht wurden. Ergebnisse von Materialuntersuchungen stützen eine Entstehung im 14. Jahrhundert und eine gemeinsame lokale Quelle aller Elemente der Gräber und liefern den Beweis, dass die Gräber in ihrer heutigen Form am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts an ihrem Aufstellungsort zusammen waren. Hingegen legen sie auch eine sehr viel frühere, wenn auch nicht zwingend originale Beziehung zwischen einigen der verschie- denen Elemente nahe, besonders in dem großen zusammengesetzten Grab, das als dasjenige Ermengols VII identifiziert wurde. INTRODUCTION On their acquisition by the Cloisters in 1928 and 1948, the four tombs of the Counts of Urgell were cited as exemplars of early fourteenth-century tomb sculpture from the Catalonian region of Spain [1]. The Urgell tombs are indeed rich in sculptural detail and bear the remains of fine and complex polychromy that testifies to an original opulence. Their placement in space and time, however, is unclear, as it depends on unresolved questions regarding their original appearance and context. The largest of the four tombs is a composed sepulcher, currently identified as that of Ermengol VII, Count of Urgell (d. 1183), Fig. 1. It incorpo- rates a figured sarcophagus with a relief of Christ and the apostles supported by three lions, an effigy with an attached relief of knights and vassals in mourning, a relief depicting church funeral rites and a smaller relief of the soul ascending to heaven. There is also a single tomb depicting an effigy in armor, identified as Ermengol X (Fig. 2), and a double tomb of a man and a woman, identified as Alvaro de Cabrera and Cecelia of Foix, Fig. 3. Until the early 1900s this group of tombs was located in a chapel at the monastery of Santa Maria de Bellpuig de Las Avellanas, near the city of Llerida. The provenance provided at the time of their acquisition by the museum described their com- mission by Ermengol X (d. 1314) as part of a memorial chapel at Las Avellanas to honor his ancestors. This provenance was based on a document written in the 1770s by the abbot of the monastery, Jaime Caresmar [1]. The last member of the Cabrera lineage to rule the county of Urgell, Ermengol X would have had a clear motive to build an impressive memorial chapel for his ancestors. The grand tomb of Ermengol VII, with its liturgi- cal subject matter and images of vassals engaged in the act of mourning, would not only establish the authority and status of the family in perpetuity, but would also exhort onlookers to join Fig. 1 Tomb of Ermengol VII (MMA acc. 28.95). ILLUMINATING A COMPLEX HISTORY: THE MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES OF THE TOMBS OF URGELL AT THE CLOISTERS Beth M. Edelstein, Silvia A. Centeno and Mark T. Wypyski the depicted community in offering intercessory prayers for the salvation of the deceased’s soul [2]. This tomb would, therefore, function in both a political and a liturgical context, forming a continued memorial to the Urgell rulers. The monumental tomb style was not well known in Catalonia at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Art historians point to only one example from this period, that erected for King Fig. 2 Tomb of Ermengol X (MMA acc. 48.140.2). 204