Offbeat | 17 stolen masterpieces returned to Italy with only scratches

Carabinieri and police of cers pose with one of the recovered paintings – ANSA/FILIPPO VENEZIA

Seventeen masterpieces valued at USD17.7 million were returned to Italy from Ukraine on Wednesday after being stolen by masked, armed robbers from a Verona art museum last year.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who traveled to Kiev to retrieve the paintings — which included works by Rubens, Tintoretto and Mantegna — said the possibility of ever recovering them once seem remote. Still, the paint- ings returned with little more than scratches after their long ordeal, according to an art expert.

“It’s an important day, because the works are all returning to Verona intact,” Franceschini said. “It was an ugly story that became a beautiful story.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko handed over the paintings to Franceschini in a ceremony in Kiev, saying “the theft of masterpiece paintings is akin to stealing part of the city’s heart.”

The paintings, wrapped in plastic bags, were recovered in May by Ukrainian border guards who intercepted them on a small island on the Dniester River during an attempt to smuggle them into Moldova.

They were stolen in November 2015 when three armed rob- bers entered the Castelvecchio Museum, located in a me- dieval castle, at closing time just before the alarm system was activated. The robbers calmly removed the paintings before escaping in a security guard’s car.

A guard at the museum, Pasquale Silvestri Riccardi, was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison earlier this month. Five others were also convicted, including Riccardi’s Moldovan girlfriend, who received six years, and his twin brother, who was sen- tenced to eight months.

Two Moldovans are on trial in their home country for the thefts.
Franceschini credited strong cooperation between law en- forcement in the three countries for recovering the paint- ings and nding the thieves, giving particular praise to Italy’s Carabinieri art squad. The culture minister also an- nounced the government would introduce legislation this week making the theft or damage of Italy’s cultural heritage speci c crimes with elevated penalties.

Curator Ettore Napione traveled to retrieve the paintings, studying them carefully with gloved hands before wrapping them for the homeward journey. The works were displayed in simple wooden frames made for them after they were recovered, because the thieves had cut the canvasses from their original frames, which they then discarded.

“They su ered scratches, nothing very serious,” Napione said.
The paintings are to be shown together at their home in the Castelvecchio Museum for about a month beginning Friday before undergoing restoration and reframing. AP