AP —
Four works attributed to Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina were stolen by thieves from a regional museum in the Sicily city of Messina during the holidays in Ferragosto, cultural officials and Italian media said on Sunday.
On Saturday evening, thieves evaded alarm and security systems at the Mumy Museum and stole three of the five surviving panels of the 1473 Polyptych of San Gregorio, as well as a double-sided panel depicting the Virgin Mary and the dead Christ in the Pietà, taken from an armored display case, La Presse News Agency reported.
“We are devastated by this event. They were two of Antonello da Messina’s most important and most famous works. It is a great loss for the museum, the city, the community and the art world,” MuMe director Marisa Mercurio told ANSA news agency.
She said the theft occurred just before 10pm and said the works were central to the area’s heritage.
“These are not just Antonello da Messina’s works,” she told Sky TG24. “They are works of our own Antonello da Messina, so of course they are works of considerable importance not only in terms of their artistic and cultural value, but also in terms of our identity.”
Messina’s head of culture, Enzo Caruso, described the theft as “more than a loss” and a “disaster”.
“Messina without Antonello is robbed of the very essence of the greatest artist of the European Renaissance,” Caruso told Sky, calling for the swift recovery of the stolen works.
Caruso noted that international interest in the artist has increased since Italy’s Ministry of Culture acquired Antonello’s devotional painting Ecce Homo for $14.9 million through negotiations with Sotheby’s in New York earlier this year.
Art crime analyst Linda Albertson said the artworks are so instantly recognizable that they thwart any effort to sell them through reliable channels.
“Stealing Antonello might be much easier than selling it. If this were a normal thief, he would be found out quickly – it would cost him,” Albertson, chief executive of the ARCA Art Crime Research Association, told Italian daily La Repubblica. She said such famous works of art often pass from criminal to criminal, acting as collateral for other illegal activities.
The museum was closed Sunday while investigators collected evidence. Museum officials and the Carabinieri could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Feast of Ferragosto, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, marks the height of the Italian summer holiday season.
The theft comes days after police in the northern Italian city of Parma announced they had recovered three stolen works of art worth about 10 million euros (about $11.5 million) by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse. Five people have been arrested in connection with the theft from the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma province between March 22nd and 23rd.
