Curators at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid have discovered severe wear and tear on Picasso's Guernica after conducting x-ray, infrared, and other hi-tech studies on the mural. A team of 30 technicians have identified 129 changes to the painting due to its transfers to various museums around the world, reports El País.

Nationalists have repeatedly called for the painting to be transferred to the Basque region, where the town of Guernica is located. Last year, the director of the Guggenheim in Bilbao also requested that experts study whether a transfer would be as damaging as the Reina Sofia curators had claimed.

Picasso's Guernica

The mural is in "serious but stable condition," curator Jorge García Gómez Tejedor said, adding that it does not require immediate restoration but should not be moved again.

Picasso's masterpiece of war's destruction had been exhibited internationally to raise awareness for the republican cause during the Spanish Civil War, before taking up residence at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Most of the damage occurred in the process of rolling up the mural for each transfer.