Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Stolen 14th-century Italian painting found in the United States

A 14th-century triptych painting, which was stolen from an Italian villa nearly 40 years ago, has been found in a museum in Kentucky. US government officials announced yesterday that the art piece, a three-panel wooden triptych, which depicts the Virgin Mary with Child, was found at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, will be returned to its owners in Italy.

The triptych, which is believed to the work of Jacopo del Casentino, was stolen from the Villa La Giraffa in Goito, Italy, on October 2, 1971. According to Italian police reports, burglars entered the villa in the early morning hours by cutting through metal bars and a glass window on the first floor of the residence. Fourteen pieces of art, worth $33 million at the time, were stolen, including original oil paintings by the Italian realist painters Giovanni Fattori and Silvestro Lega, and three still-life paintings by artists from the Venetian School.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net