On 16 May, 2012 With
The work in question is a 1538 painting by Girolamo de Romani, also known as Romanino, depicting an image of Jesus Christ in an unusual copper-colored robe, carrying the cross on his right shoulder while being dragged by a soldier. It was held in private collections by European families until 1914, when Gentili purchased it. When the Nazis marched into France, many of Gentili’s heirs fled — but weren’t able to take the family patriarch’s art collection and many other valuables. Vichy French authorities auctioned off the property, including more than 70 pieces of art, and barred the family from returning to claim the art work in 1941. The Romanino painting was acquired by the Italian government-run museum Pinacoteca di…
Read More
On 7 Nov, 2010 With
Stolen $50 million Vincent van Gogh painting recovered in Cairo airport, stolen by two Italians The only place the Van Gogh will be going is back to the museum. A stolen painting by the famed artist worth $50 million has been recovered by the cops at an airport in Cairo, according to Egypt’s cultural minister. Airport security confiscated the painting from two Italian bandits trying to flee the country on Saturday evening, said minster Farouk Hosni. The painting, which goes by two titles “Poppy Flowers” and “Vase with Flowers,” was stolen early Saturday from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo. The work is 1-foot-by-1-foot and illustrates yellow and red flowers. It is believed to have been painted by Van Gogh in 1887, three years…
Read More
On 10 Oct, 2010 With
Boston art theft remains biggest unsolved mystery By John Wilson Vermeer’s The Concert is estimated to be worth around £200m The Gardner robbery remains the largest single property theft of all time As crime scenes go, it has got to be one of the most beautiful. The Dutch Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is lined with green silk wallpaper, from terracotta cobbled floor to oak timbered ceiling. On one wall hangs a Van Dyck, on another a Rubens but these artworks are not the first things one notices in the first floor gallery. It is the empty frames that stop you in your tracks. One, an ornate gilded rectangle framing nothing but green wallpaper, once held…
Read More
