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The Art Hostage team undertakes a wide range of services, including due diligence, collection conservation and management, risk assessment and security as well as legal issues, recovery and dispute resolution involving art and artifacts. Through partnerships with leading organizations, the Art Hostage team can provide a complete service for all aspects of collecting and protecting art.
Caravaggio, Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (1600)
Palermo, 18 October
1969: it’s a dark and stormy night and two low-lifes in a Piaggio Ape
are driving along the Via Immacolatella in the historic centre. They
stop at the Oratory of San Lorenzo, break in and make straight for
Caravaggio’s Nativity hanging above the altar, cut the canvas from its frame with a razor, roll it up and leave.
This
is the opening sequence of one of the most notorious art thefts in
history, a sequence that some still find credible. Fifty years on,
though, the crime has still not been solved. The passage of time and the
endless versions of events offered by informers and pseudo-detectives
have taken over the inquiries, while the actual fate of the Nativity remains shrouded in mystery.
Here we sum up a few of the most imaginative hypotheses based on the opening sequence outlined above.
• The mafioso pentito
( a criminal turned state witness), Marino Mannoia , told Judge
Giovanni Falcone in 1989—and he repeated the statement in 1996—that the
Caravaggio had been stolen to order, but when the purchaser saw it, he
turned it down because it was badly damaged and he subsequently ordered
it to be cut up and burned. Mannoia also hinted at the involvement of a
former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti.
•
Another mafioso, Gerlando Alberti, said that the painting had come into
his possession, but after failing to sell it, he had buried it with a
hoard of dollars; excavations on his property were carried out but
nothing was found.
•
The hit-man Giovanni Brusca, who murdered Judge Falcone in 1992, offered
to return the painting in exchange for more lenient treatment after he
was arrested in 1996.
•
Another mafia murderer, Gaspare Spatuzza, said the painting was kept in
a barn, where it was eaten by mice and pigs, while the British
journalist Peter Watson claimed to have tracked it down, but that it got
buried under rubble during the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia while
negotiations were underway with the Camorra, the Neapolitan equivalent
of the mafia, to exchange it for a cache of drugs and arms.
• Guido De Santis, a RAI
radio journalist, says that he saw the painting and that the theft was
carried out on the orders of the mafioso boss Pietro Vernengo, who
delivered it to another boss, who tried, unsuccessfully to sell it, and
then destroyed it.
• Salvatore Cangemi, the first mafioso to turn pentito, said it was displayed at high-level mafia meetings as a symbol of power. Other pentito mafiosi have said that they used it as a carpet—the most insolent claim by far.
This
stream of stories, boasts and false leads has kept the police busy for
years and has led to just two conclusions: the painting was stolen by
the mafia, and it was then destroyed.
In 2017, however, the
case was re-opened by the anti-mafia commission, led by its president,
the government minister Rosy Bindi. Having acquired new statements from
Mannoia and another pentito, Gaetano Grado, the commission
concluded that the painting still exists and that after it was
relinquished by the boss Gaetano Badalamenti (one of the most powerful
traffickers in the Sicilian heroin trade with the US, who died in a US
prison in 2004), it was cut up and is now in Switzerland.
This
report is undoubtedly significant and although it contains a number of
logistical and geographical inaccuracies in the statements made by the
two pentiti—and not all antique dealers consulted agree that it
is likely the painting was cut up—the document has the great merit of
resurrecting the work, identifying the role of Badalamenti and
suggesting where it might be.
Attention
has focused again on the accusations, levied immediately after the
theft by Monsignor Rocco, custodian of the Oratory, against Badalamenti.
Although these were ignored at the time, Rocco stated that, after being
shown a piece of canvas as proof, he opened the way to possible
negotiations but was stopped by the then state official for works of
art, Vincenzo Scuderi.
Relations
between the two were particularly tense because Scuderi had not
listened to the priest’s requests, made well before the theft, to
tighten the security of the building, and, against Rocco’s wishes, he
had also authorised RAI, the state broadcasting company, to
film a programme on hidden treasures inside the oratory, which was
broadcast in August 1969. Rocco blamed this programme for the theft. The
anti-mafia commission’s investigations are basing themselves on Rocco’s
statements accusing Badalamenti of having the painting, and this would
clearly be a lead to follow now.
This
rapid overview of the situation raises a number of questions that have
never been answered by earlier investigations. First, when was
Caravaggio’s Nativity actually stolen? The congregation saw it
for the last time at Sunday mass on 12 October 1969, and the Gelfo
sisters, the caretakers of the oratory, noticed it had gone missing on
Saturday 18 October when they entered the oratory to prepare for the
mass on the following day. The theft must, therefore, have been
committed between 12 and the 18 October, which allows time for the work
to have been smuggled out of Palermo. News of the theft was only
reported in Giornale di Sicilia on 20 October.
Second, the police report on the state of the premises, a vital document for understanding the theft, has disappeared.
Third,
is the opening sequence as described above, and taken as the basis for
all subsequent investigations, credible? Could the removal of a painting
measuring 3x2 metres, on particularly heavy wooden stretchers, hanging
at a height of six metres and surrounded by the delicate plasterwork of
Giacomo Serpotta, to which there was no damage whatsoever, really have
been the work of two common thieves?
And
what of removing the canvas with a razor blade without leaving a single
millimetre of paint on the remaining shreds? The excision was carried
out with extreme skill and precision and can neither have been rushed or
improvised.
So, if
this was not the work of two delinquents who happened to break into the
oratory and carry off the canvas after slashing it out of its frame,
then the most probable hypothesis is that the theft was well prepared
and carried out to order, perhaps by professionals.
Indeed,
this suspicion was voiced at the time in the headline of Giornale di
Sicilia, and it was repeated by Maresciallo Guelfo Giuliano Andrei of
the newly formed Carabinieri’s Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (division
for the protection of cultural heritage), sent to Palermo to coordinate
the investigations, who issued a statement saying that “the theft was
not opportunistic, but may have been ordered by a gang of international,
organised criminals using local operatives in Palermo”.
This hypothesis was abandoned too soon, probably in order to follow the confessions and revelations offered by pentiti
mafiosi, and it would now be worth reinvestigating, with leads to
Switzerland and to Badalamenti’s role as the person who either ordered
the theft or paid those who carried it out.
Last,
it is worth mentioning the thought-provoking theory of a local
anthropologist, scholar and mafia expert who suggests that the mafia had
nothing to do with the theft but became its victim because such an
outrageous act threatened its claim to territorial control and its
international prestige as an organised criminal network. It therefore
laid claim to the theft and boasted about it with numerous different
versions of the story, all of which ending, of course, in the
destruction of the Nativity.
Fifty
years have passed. Many of the protagonists have died, but no stone is
being left unturned now and hope is still alive. It relies on trust in
the continuing investigation, on chance discovery, or the miracle of a
deathbed repentance by the unlawful possessor, who knows that they will
shortly meet their Maker.
More arrests in £4.8m golden toilet theft case
Credit: Tom Lindboe/Blenheim Art Foundation/PA
Officers investigating the burglary of a golden toilet at Blenheim Palace have made three more arrests.
A 35-year-old man, a 34-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, all from Oxford, were arrested this morning.
The fully functioning toilet, worth £4.8 million, was stolen in September.
It was part of an art exhibition in a wood-panelled room at the
18th-century estate, and its theft caused significant flood damage as it
had been plumbed in for visitors to use.
Credit: Blenheim Palace/PA
Two people have previously been arrested.
Thames Valley Police were called to Winston Churchill’s birthplace at
Woodstock, Oxfordshire, on September 14, where the art installation
lavatory was stolen in an overnight raid.
Officers believe at least two vehicles were used during the burglary.
No-one was injured and it is thought the offenders left the scene at
around 4.50am.
An
18ct gold toilet by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, titled “America 2016”, was
stolen from Blenheim Palace between 04:49 and 04:54 on 14 September 2019. The five
culprits arrived in two vehicles and smashed their way into the Palace.
A
Substantial Reward is being offered for its safe return “subject to specific conditions.”
An 18-carat solid gold toilet has been stolen in a burglary overnight at Blenheim Palace.
A gang broke into the Oxfordshire palace at about 04:50 BST and stole the artwork, Thames Valley Police said.
The
working toilet - entitled America, which visitors had been invited to
use - has not been found but a 66-year-old man has been arrested.
The burglary caused "significant damage and flooding" because the toilet was plumbed into the building, police said.
It was part of an exhibition by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan that opened on Thursday.
The
18th Century stately home is a World Heritage Site and the birthplace
of Sir Winston Churchill. It is currently closed while investigations
continue. Speaking last month,
Edward Spencer-Churchill - half-brother of the current Duke of
Marlborough - said he was relaxed about security for the artwork.
"It's not going to be the easiest thing to nick," he said.
Visitors to the exhibition were free to use the
palace's throne for its intended purpose, with a three-minute time limit
to avoid queues.
Det Insp Jess Milne, said: "The piece of art
that has been stolen is a high-value toilet made out of gold that was on
display at the palace.
"We believe a group of offenders used at least two vehicles during the offence.
"The
artwork has not been recovered at this time but we are conducting a
thorough investigation to find it and bring those responsible to
justice." In a tweet, Blenheim Palace said it would remain shut for the rest of the day, but would reopen on Sunday.
Palace chief executive Dominic Hare said they were "saddened by this extraordinary event, but also relieved no-one was hurt".
"We
hope that the wonderful work of our dear friend Maurizio Cattelan
becomes immortalised by this stupid and pointless act," he added.
The gold toilet was famously offered to US President Donald Trump in 2017.
The arrested man is in police custody.
STOLEN
An
18ct gold toilet by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, titled “America 2016”, was
stolen from Blenheim Palace between 04:49 and 04:54 on 14 September 2019. The five
culprits arrived in two vehicles and smashed their way into the Palace.
A
Substantial Reward is being offered for its safe return “subject to specific conditions.”
Valuable and historic antiques stolen as thieves raid Gloucestershire Castle
Historic and valuable antiques were stolen in a daring darkness raid on Sudeley Castle, police have revealed.
Gloucestershire Constabulary have revealed details of a burglary committed at the Winchcombe stately home earlier this month.
In
the early hours of Sunday, September 8, offenders forced their way into
the exhibition area of the castle, smashed a display case and stole
valuable jewellery and artefacts. In
a statement released today, Police have revealed that the offenders
arrived and departed in a 4x4 vehicle with a number of items - including
a chair.
The statement said: "The detectives are examining CCTV
footage which shows four offenders approach the property with a chair,
sledgehammer and large garden or builder's bag."They made off in a 4x4 vehicle which was parked nearby."
The stolen property includes:
A presentation gold box, Swiss late 18th Century, with a miniature of Edward VII set in diamonds;
A presentation gold and enamel box with the Prince of Wales feathers set in diamonds;
A Cartier watch monogrammed AK (Alice Keppel) 1910; a Faberge gold cigarette case set with diamonds;
A Faberge silver caviar box and silver mounted vodka glasses, c1910;
A gold snuffbox, Paris 1783;
A silver cigarette case by Marshak, Kiev 1908;
and a book of extracts from Sydney Smith, given to Alice Keppel by King Edward VII.
Detective
Superintendent Steve Bean said: "This burglary happened under cover of
darkness, but it is still possible that someone may have witnessed
suspicious behaviour at or near the property in the hours leading up to
it or afterwards, and may be able to help us identify the offenders. "Clearly the stolen items are very distinctive and have a great deal of historical, as well as financial, value.
"They
should be easy to identify and if anyone is aware of them being offered
for sale I would urge them to report it to police as soon as possible".
Sudeley
Castle's owner Lady Ashcombe said: "We are all saddened to learn of
this burglary. There were beautiful artefacts on display for everyone to
enjoy and were very precious to me personally".
Anyone with
information about the burglary is asked to call Gloucestershire
Constabulary on 101 quoting incident 110 of 8 September.
Thieves nab €2 million haul from vaunted French chateau
The Vaux-le-Vicomte chateau.
The owners of a 17th-century French
palace said to be the model for Versailles were tied up as their opulent
home was ransacked Thursday by robbers who fled with a haul worth €2
million, police said.
The Vaux-le-Vicomte chateau, set amid sumptuous gardens about 50
kilometres southeast of Paris, has been owned by the same family since
1875.
A police source said six hooded but unarmed robbers found neckties
belonging to Patrice de Vogue, 90, to tie up him and his wife Cristina,
78, in their lodging on the grounds of the palace.
The thieves targeted a safe and stole emeralds and other items, but did not attempt to make off with the chateau's works of art.
The couple was not injured during the robbery, which occurred shortly
before dawn, according to prosecutors in the nearby city of Melun.
"The owners are doing fine and the chateau remains open for visits as usual," the palace's management told AFP.
Patrice de Vogue opened the estate to the public in 1968, and it is now run by the couple's three sons.
The chateau was built by Louis XIV's finance minister Nicolas
Fouquet, who according to legend fell from grace in 1661, shortly after
the building work was finished, when he staged an elaborate party there
and aroused the Sun King's envy.
Fouquet spent the rest of his life in jail. The monarch then seized
the palace and moved its most precious artworks and other objects to
Versailles.
It is the largest privately-owned heritage site in France, sprawled over 500 hectares, and has some 250,000 visitors each year.
The chateau often stands in for Versailles for movie and television
productions, from the Roger Moore Bond hit "Moonraker" to Sofia
Coppola's "Marie Antoinette".
It has become a prize spot for celebrity wedding parties, such as the
lavish 2007 bash for French basketball star Tony Parker and "Desperate
Housewives" star Eva Longoria.
The lost video, the stolen
Caravaggio – and the mafia boss’s razor blade
Masterpiece
was kept in the home of notorious Sicilian, who sliced off a piece in order to
make a deal with Catholic church
Monsignor
Rocco Bendetto testifies about Caravaggio's Nativity - video
A
Caravaggio masterpiece stolen from a Palermo church 50 years ago and listed
among FBI’s “most wanted” stolen artworks, was kept in the home of a powerful
mafia boss, who sliced off a piece of the canvas in order to convince the
Catholic church to make a deal for its return, according to previously unseen
testimony from the priest who tried to recover it.
In an
video interview filmed in 2001, but locked in a drawer and now revealed
exclusively to the Guardian, the parish priest of the Oratory of San Lorenzo
revealed astonishing details of the October 1969 theft of Merisi da
Caravaggio’s Nativity With St Lawrence and St Francis.
Monsignor
Rocco Benedetto, who died in 2003, said the painting was in the home of
notorious Sicilian mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti – a claim only confirmed for
the first time by investigators last year – and said he had attempted to extort
the church for its return.
“A few
months after [the theft], a letter arrived at my home,” Benedetto explained to
film director Massimo D’Anolfi, who had filmed the interview for a documentary
he was working on at the time about stolen artworks. “In the letter, the
thieves declared: ‘We have the painting. If you want to make a deal, you have
to submit this advert in the Giornale di Sicilia [Sicily’s daily newspaper].’”
The
advert was intended to be a signal to Cosa Nostra that the Church was ready to
talk. Benedetto told the superintendent of cultural affairs of Palermo, who
then had the advert published in the newspaper. Two weeks later, the priest received
a second letter – this one with an added mafiosi threat.
“The
letter was accompanied by piece of the painting, a tiny piece of the canvas,
which was intended to make clear to me that they really had the Caravaggio in
their possession,” Benedetto told his interviewer. “I went straight to the
superintendent and informed him of what was happening. I left him the letter
and the piece of canvas.”
“The
mafia was doing with the painting what they normally do with kidnapping
victims”, says D’Anolfi, who, at 45, is now an acclaimed director and will be
screening the full interview next month in Palermo. “They had sent a piece of
the painting just like they normally send a finger or an ear of a kidnapping
victim.”
The
letter requested a second advert in the Giornale di Sicilia, but this time the
superintendent refused and instead reported Benedetto to the police on
suspicion of having organised the theft himself. Benedetto was for a short
period placed under investigation.
“They
even fingerprinted me. Later the superintendent apologised,” he told D’Anolfi.
“[He] admitted that he had made a mistake. But at that point, the damage had
been done.”
The fate
of the Nativity has been the subject of speculation for nearly half a century,
ever since two criminals used razors to cut it from its frame in the Palermo
church where it had hung for more than 350 years.
Among
theories that have captured the imagination of art history enthusiasts is that
the painting may have been eaten by rats after being left to rot in a barn.
Benedetto’s
claim of the mafia’s involvement was borne out 17 years after he spoke to
D’Anolfi when Italian investigators revealed in May 2018 that a turncoat,
Gaetano Grado, had told them the painting had been held by Badalamenti and that
a member of the boss’s crime family he had been put in touch with an art dealer
in Switzerland – where the Caravaggio could now be.
But it
wasn’t until after Benedetto was no longer under investigation that he had
corroboration of mafia involvement when a priest in Carini, 12 miles from
Palermo, called him in early 1970 to say he had seen a photograph of the stolen
masterpiece.
“He said
that he had had a painting restored, which had been stolen shortly afterward,”
Benedetto claimed. “He told me that he was convinced it was the local mafia,
and that he had contacted some mafiosi in order to get it back. Then he said a
young man had come to see him with two photos: one, a photo of his painting;
the other, the Nativity. He then pointed to his missing painting – a work by a
Tuscan artist of lesser renown – and they returned it.”
Badalamenti
was the boss of nearby Cinisi and at the time one of the most powerful mafia
figures in Sicily, running a $1.65bn (£1.33bn) heroin trafficking network to
the US. He was arrested in 1984 under the leadership of the then US attorney in
New York, Rudy Giuliani, and died in a Massachusetts hospital in 2004.
Benedetto
went back to the police with his new information but told his interviewer
nothing had happened. “[The police] had known for years the location of the
painting. It was in the province of Palermo. The Mafiosi would use it to flaunt
their power,” he said.
A mafia
informer, Salvatore Cancemi, had separately told prosecutors in the late 1990s
that the Nativity had been put on display for meetings among the most
powerful bosses in Sicily as a symbol of their prestige. The current
investigation suggests that the painting could have been transferred to
Switzerland after the death of Badalamenti.
The head
of Italy’s anti-mafia commission, Rosy Bindi, stated last year: “We hope to
find it and bring it back to its home in Palermo.”
D’Anolfi
said Benedetto’s interview provided important new information on one of the
most notorious art thefts of the 20th century. “Twenty years earlier, and just
two years after his death, he revealed what the authorities would only disclose
last year,” he said.
In the
interview he tells D’Anolfi of the mafia boss’s feared crime family: “The
Badalamentis have the painting. I’m sure of it.”
Benedetto,
who after the theft always refused to speak to journalists, disclosed more on
the circumstances surrounding it. He said a few months before the theft, he
received a visit from a journalist from Italian state broadcaster Rai, who wanted
to interview him about the Caravaggio for a programme called The Forgotten
Masterpieces. He declined the offer. “I told the journalist that if the public
learned such a painting existed, then its theft was assured because there were
no security measures in place for that painting.”
Rai did
however obtain permission from the same Palermo superintendent who later
reported Benedetto to the police, to broadcast images of the Caravaggio. The
priest’s warning became prophecy – mere months later, the Nativity was stolen.
The 2001
interview lay locked in a drawer until last year, when the the Sicilian
association Amici dei Musei, which is promoting the
restoration of the Oratory of San Lorenzo, learned that Benedetto had given an
interview and got in touch with D’Anolfi. It asked him to organise an exclusive
screening in Palermo on the 50th anniversary of the theft.
The
director said he had not realised the importance of what Benedetto was telling him
at the time. He said: “The priest said he had informed the police about all
this. To be honest, I thought that the information contained in that interview
was already in the possession of the authorities.
“However,
in hindsight, Benedetto’s revelations look more credible now that the recent
investigation has confirmed his version of the facts. Sometimes I think that if
this interview came out before, maybe people would have thought he was just a
crazy priest.”
The unedited interview will be shown at Palermo’s
Teatro Biondo on 15 October, during a week of cultural activities supported by
the association Le Vie dei Tesori featuring other stolen artworks
still missing
In
a statement released today, Police have revealed that the offenders
arrived and departed in a 4x4 vehicle with a number of items - including
a chair.
"Clearly the stolen items are very distinctive and have a great deal of historical, as well as financial, value.