[CPProt.net] ART THEFT: PAINTINGS, ETC COME BACK TO ITALY

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

ART THEFT: PAINTINGS, ETC COME BACK TO ITALY


(AGI) - Rome, Italy, Dec. 23 - The latest success of the Carabinieri team in
charge of the protection of artworks: the return to Italy of the Renaissance
bust of Traiano in white marble and two paintings by Andrea Appiani from
1784. The sculpture and paintings were presented today by Carabinieri on
occasion of the annual budget of thefts and recoveries of artworks. The
bust, stolen from the Capitoline Museums in Rome, was recognized by
Carabinieri in the catalogues of the New York auction house Christie's. It
was on sale as an archaeological find from the Imperial era for a value of
between 250 and 300 thousand dollars, almost ten times its value as
estimated by experts, entrusted to the house by an Austrian collector. The
two canvases had been located in the Brancaccio castle in the San Gregorio
da Sassola municipality near Roma, and depict "Veneus and Adonis" and "Venus
and Mars". They had been stolen during restoration work in the castle
between 1994 and 1999 and retraced also in the catalogue of Christie's, on
sale for between 30 thousand and 50 thousand dollars from a Californian
collector. Among the most important recoveries from 2005, a special mention
goes to the valuable antiquarian furniture in the royal palace at Stupinigi
in Turin, hundreds of findings from an operation called Mozart in honour of
the Country (Austria) where bona fide illegal museums were found, and
thousands of items found in Nervesa della Battaglia, including a bronze disc
from the III century B.C., as well as the findings restored in November from
the Getty Museum in Malibu', the crater of Asteas, a funerary stela and a
bronze Etruscan candelabra.
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232019 DIC 05