Thanks to the sharp eye of an Italian museum employee, a more than sixty-year-old painting robbery has been solved at an art auction in Middelburg.
At the auction last spring, a work was offered that was stolen in 1959 from the Civico Ala Ponzone museum in Cremona, Italy. A museum employee recognized the panel and called the police. The Art Crime Team of the National Police took up the case. The work goes back to Italy.
For more than sixty years, the special, 500-year-old work of art from Italy was missing. Until the stolen painting by Galeazzo Campi suddenly turned up at an auction in Zeeland. Much to the delight of the Civico Ala Ponzone museum in Cremona, Italy.
Surprise
In an art robbery in the famous museum in the Italian city in 1959, the work of the Italian Renaissance painter was captured. This spring, a museum employee saw to his surprise that it was offered by an auction house in Middelburg.
“The man immediately called in the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, the art team of the Italian police. And these police officers signaled us again,” says Richard Bronswijk of the Art Crime Team of the national police unit. The work of 16 by 22 centimeters was offered under number 118 by auction house Korendijk. Art expert Tinus of the Rotterdam police approached the auction house to find out who had contributed the stolen work.
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Bronswijk: “The man who offered the work bought up the contents of houses, for example after the death of residents. It turned out that he had owned it for some time and no longer knew where it came from. The most important thing for us was that the work was found. The Italians were really overjoyed.”
‘Emotional value is very great’
The maker Campi lived from 1475 to 1536. He probably made the panel at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is an image of God and is called l’Interno Benedicte . “The work is worth about five thousand euros, but for the museum the emotional value is especially great.” Bronswijk will probably take it to a conference for colleagues in Italy at the end of this month. “Or the Italians will come and get it here.”
Who stole the work and exactly how it ended up in the Netherlands is still completely unclear. Bronswijk: “The museum is now looking in the archives for more details about the robbery.”
About a thousand art objects are stolen in the Netherlands every year. Bronswijk’s team is trying to retrieve them and is also investigating stolen art for other countries. They have to make do with five, at most six detectives and some support from the regions, while the Italian art theft team alone has 25 people available for online research into missing art.
In Cremona the work is reunited with other, much better known works such as the meditating one Saint Francis of Assisi from the master Caravaggio and L’ortolano by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.