The Basque Government expands the Basque Country's documentary heritage with the acquisition of more than 8,000 drawings and documents by Cristóbal Balenciaga and his team

• It is a private collection of the Italian designer Lorenzo Riva who worked as the artistic director of the Balenciaga firm
• The examinations carried out show that more than 1,500 documents contain annotations or drawings directly attributable to the hand of Cristóbal Balenciaga
• The documentation is now in the Basque Country Historical Archive and will later be transferred to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum in Getaria

The Department of Culture and Language Policy today presented a recently acquired collection of documents related to the Balenciaga House in Paris, from the 1940s to the 1960s, at the Basque Country Historical Archive. The presentation was attended by the Minister of Culture and Language Policy and Spokesperson for the Basque Government, Bingen Zupiria, and the director of the Balenciaga Museum in Getaria, Miren Vives.

The collection contains a total of 8,362 documents, most of them measuring 13x21cm and in good condition, which are classified as follows:

• Sketches of collection work, specifying models, accessories, fabrics, atelier commissioned and other additional information. More than 1,000 of these sketches contain fabric samples, mostly from the 1960s.
• Sketches of previous ideas, mostly from the 1950s, with rehearsals and sketches of some of the most emblematic lines that Balenciaga would initiate at that time.
• Sketches for presentations, with annotations of specific dates and places, also from the 1950s, showing individual models and collective presentations.
• Figurines for the theatre, from the mid-1940s.
• Sketches relating to headgear and accessories.
• Miscellaneous work orders and handwritten documents.
• Other drawings and personal documents.

None of the sketches is signed in order for the authorship to be determined and specified, but according to the examinations carried out, 18% of the collection contains annotations and drawings by Cristóbal Balenciaga, which in 60% of the cases, accompany the atelier sketches. The rest are by the hand of various as yet unidentified costume designers and collaborators.

This archive is the only known archive of such scale and importance. No other museum in the world conserves a specific Balenciaga documentary collection of this nature, and only the current Balenciaga firm, which lacks a vocation for public access to its archives, has a larger collection.

Both the Minister Zupiria and the Director of the Balenciaga Museum, Miren Vives, have highlighted the great documentary and heritage value of the collection. The Minister for Culture and Language

Policy, Bingen Zupiria, stressed that the acquisition “enriches the Basque Country’s documentary heritage. This documentary collection will help us to understand the Getaria couturier’s way of working and the work process in the sewing workshops, as well as being a testimony to a part of mid-20th century society.”

For Miren Vives, this collection of sketches is “a great boost for the Museum’s documentary holdings. This acquisition consolidates and reinforces the international reference and projection of the documentary heritage linked to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum.”

Zupiria added: “This will be the first Balenciaga collection of its kind to be in public hands. The rest is in private hands, specifically, in the possession of the Balenciaga Paris brand, making it very enriching from a heritage point of view for the shaping of Basque cultural heritage.” Miren Viven also wanted to stress that “these contributions can also open up important lines of research and, consequently, the generation of new knowledge about the creative process of Cristóbal Balenciaga.”

The sketches are already in the Historical Archive of the Basque Country, which is responsible for receiving all kinds of documentation produced by the Basques, collectively or individually, over time. It is also responsible for compiling, organising and conserving the documentation, with the aim of facilitating its consultation. This documentary archive will later be transferred to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum in Getaria, a reference centre for the study of the figure of the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, whose main aim is to promote, disseminate and enhance the transcendence of his figure and his work, both in the world of fashion and haute couture, and in the field of artistic creation in general.

The next steps for the collection, which will be carried out by the Basque Country Historical Archive in collaboration with the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, are related to its preventive conservation and inventory.

To this end, all the material will have to be digitised —thus guaranteeing that it can be researched in the future without resorting to direct manipulation— and preserved in suitable supports for the conservation of the paper. In addition, the collection will be temporarily sealed and work will begin on studying and cataloguing it.

At the same time, there are plans to present a selection of the collection to the public at the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum this spring.

Origin of the collection

The Cristóbal Balenciaga Foundation detected the digitisation, organisation and dissemination of a possible documentary archive originating in the workshop of the fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga and set to work on locating it. It was in December 2021 when the first contact was made with the Italian designer Lorenzo Riva, owner of the collection, and the company Art Consulting, in charge of disseminating it. Riva worked as artistic director of Balenciaga between 1980 and 1982 and for his departure from the company, which was negotiating its sale to the Bogart group, he negotiated a financial compensation and another in kind, which is precisely the archive presented today. 

After the first contact with Lorenzo Riva and after presenting the information to the Board of Trustees of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Foundation, in which the Basque Government participates as a founding member, a detailed study of the documentary archive began, which included several visits to the collection to review the archive in situ and verify the authenticity of the collection. The process has taken into account:

• The oral transmission from workers of the Balenciaga house to Lorenzo Riva, during his stay in the house.
• The type and characteristics of the paper used for the sketches.
• The inks, pencils and watercolours used in the execution of the sketches.
• The fabric samples present in many of the sketches.
• Stylistic similarities between the sketches in the collection and those kept in other archives.
• Calligraphic evidence of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s handwriting in comparison with undisputed documents.
• The historical data contained in the sketches.