The 9-meter-tall bronze statue is a tribute to the Marquis of Duero, Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha e Irigoyen and was inaugurated in 1885. Manuel Gutiérrez was born in in Córdoba in Argentina in 1808, but moved to Spain in 1814 after his father’s death in the May Revolution.
The life of a soldier
Manuel Gutiérrez entered the Royal Guard in 1820 and later joined the army in the First Carlist War (a civil war fought between factions over the succession to the throne) for which he was awarded several military crosses and the rank of field marshal. In 1847, he was ordered to lead an expedition to Portugal to help uphold the reign of Queen Maria II of Portugal, for which he was later named Marquis of Duero. He died in Monte Muro in 1874 struck by a bullet when preparing for the attack on Estella, the symbolic Carlist capital.