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.
Posted by david meadows on Dec-27-05 at 5:58 AM
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