Eva Perón’s sarcophagus

The most outstanding of Carlos Pallarols Cuni’s works would have an uncertain destiny and it could be exposed years after her death. It is Eva Perón´s mask.
When Eva Perón went to Europe in 1947, she was surprised by the great ancient monuments.
She imagined a great monua tribute to argentinian workers who had died fighting for social rights.
When she returned to Argentina and for two years, she leaded the project and supervised the scale models which she could approve short after dying. She never imagined that place was to be her own destiny.

Eva died on July 26th in 1952. The National Congress decided to build a sarcophagus to keep her corpse. It would be made of light silver sheet, 1mm, so it could be held every July 26th to pay a tribute to her memory. From 1952 to middle 1953, Pallarols worked on a scale model which was approved by Perón.
In 1955 a revolution overthrew Peron’s government and a decree law enforced the “Desperonización”. It consisted on the complete destruction of all the material related to Peronism. Thus, Carlos Pallarols Cuni was obliged to destroy the work started in 1952.

However, the piece was secretly preserved by the Pallarols family. In 1983 with the arrival of democracy, Juan Carlos Pallarols decided to restore and complete Eva’s mask.