THE ARCHIVE BY COUNTRY
Published reports from our archive, newest first.
A country may refer to the theft, recovery, return or legal proceedings. A case can be linked to more than one country.
51 reports · Page 2 / 3
The seventeenth-century Tribute Money was stolen from San Vito in Ercole in 1998. Carabinieri located it through an auction catalogue, seized it at a Florence auction house and returned it to the archbishop of Capua. Rai News published an image of the painting.
The woman who reported the 1991 theft recognized Self-Portrait with Scarecrow at a retrospective at Forte di Bard. A technical assessment supported the match, and Carabinieri returned the painting to her on a judicial order in October 2022. The collector who had lent it to the exhibition opposed the return, ANSA reported. The ANSA photograph compares the painting at different dates.
Getty’s Poet and Sirens sculptures formally repatriated to Italy — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
Manhattan prosecutors announced the formal repatriation of the terracotta group following evidence of looting near Taranto. The Getty consented after investigators presented evidence concerning its trafficking history.
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa — historical reproduction, Library of Congress. Image source ↗
A Library of Congress historical account describes the theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, its recovery in Italy and return in 1913. The record date is the account’s publication on 22 August 2022, not the theft date. The Louvre independently corroborates the recovery.
The Uffizi confirmed the return of a sixteenth-century Holy Family with Saint Catherine after the Carabinieri identified it in an auction listing. The painting had been on loan at San Michele in Monteripaldi when it was stolen. Image detail: Uffizi Galleries.
Carabinieri recovered Paesaggio con chiesa, which had disappeared in 2010, and returned it to the City of Naples.
A Milan court upheld a finding that a porcelain Serpents acquired at a lost-property auction was an authorised Jeff Koons work. Koons had maintained that it was a defective prototype and appealed the decision. Photo shows a Serpents sculpture, courtesy of Christie’s.
Carabinieri recovered a seventeenth-century oil on panel in Munich after identifying it in a Bavarian auction catalogue in 2016. The painting was stolen from a Milan home in August 1975. Milan judicial authorities ordered its return to the heirs of the person who reported the theft. Image of the recovered work published by la Repubblica.
Carabinieri located a first-century BC marble statue stolen from a Rome villa about a decade earlier. ANSA reported its February 2021 return following a European investigation order.
A Milan court found dealer Gabriele Seno guilty of trying to sell a counterfeit Study for Homage to the Square for €320,000. He received a suspended sentence and was appealing as of January 2021. The photograph illustrates a different work from Albers’s Homage to the Square series.
Stolen Salvator Mundi copy recovered in a Naples apartment — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
Italian police recovered a sixteenth-century version of Salvator Mundi taken from the San Domenico Maggiore museum. The source describes it as a work associated with Leonardo’s followers, not the painting sold in 2017.
Italy’s Carabinieri returned Bramer’s nocturnal scene after it resurfaced for sale. It had been stolen in 2006 from a Rome auction house.
Reuters reported that Italy returned Banksy’s Bataclan fire-exit-door mural to France on 14 July 2020. Stolen in January 2019, the door had been found in an Italian farmhouse in June 2020.
Experts confirmed that the painting found in a cavity in the Ricci Oddi gallery wall in December 2019 was Portrait of a Lady, missing since 1997.
The Uffizi confirmed that the painting, taken in 1944, returned to Pitti Palace on 19 July 2019.
Gilbert & George, There Were Two Young Men, 1971 — © Gilbert & George / Primae / David Bordes, Fondation Louis Vuitton. Image source ↗
Gilbert & George’s six-part charcoal-on-paper work There Were Two Young Men (April 1971) was exhibited in Paris in 2019 after its recovery following theft from Turin’s Sperone gallery. The 18 July 2019 account says its absence was discovered in 1986 and a telephone call in 2006 led to recovery. Fondation Louis Vuitton acquired and displayed the complete work. The six parts form one artwork, not six separate thefts.
Euphronios krater, returned to Italy in 2008 — official Quirinale exhibition catalogue. Image source ↗
Italy’s presidency announced the opening of L’arte di salvare l’arte on 3 May 2019, marking 50 years of the Carabinieri cultural heritage unit. The exhibition presented works recovered or restituted over earlier decades, including paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Piero della Francesca and antiquities. This is an exhibition report, not a new theft or a claim that all items were recovered on that date.
A Madonna and Child relief by Luca and Andrea della Robbia, stolen from a Scansano church in 1971, was traced to a collector in Canada. A predella attributed to Manfredino da Pistoia, stolen in Varazze in 1988, was recovered in London. Both returned to Italy and were presented on 17 April. The photograph, published by Eccoci Toscana, shows the relief.
Thieves broke into Santa Maria Maddalena church and stole a copy of The Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Acting on advance information, police had already moved the original to safety and installed a reproduction and surveillance cameras. The original was not stolen in this incident. Artnet updated its report on 14 March to clarify the substitution.
The Accademia Carrara attributed The Resurrection of Christ to Andrea Mantegna. Research at the museum brought the small Renaissance painting back into the artist’s body of work.
A prosecution-appointed expert identified 20 seized works from the 2017 exhibition as forgeries. Exhibition participants disputed the findings. This records expert findings, rather than a final judgment.
