Rare Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina stolen from Sicilian museum
Thieves stole four 15th-century works by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina from a regional museum in Messina, Sicily, during Italy's national holiday. The theft is seen as a major blow to Italy's cultural heritage.
Four significant paintings by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina were stolen from the regional museum of Messina (MuMe) in Sicily on Saturday evening. The theft is believed to have taken advantage of public attention being focused on La Vara, a major religious festival held in the city on 15 August, coinciding with Italy's ferragosto national holiday.
The thieves bypassed the museum's alarm systems and broke into a secure display case, removing four wood panel paintings.
The stolen altarpiece
Three of the stolen works were part of the Polittico di San Gregorio altarpiece, one of the artist's most important pieces, of which five of the original six panels had survived. The altarpiece was created for the Monastero di San Gregorio, which was destroyed in the 1908 Messina earthquake. It was the only work by the Sicilian-born painter that had never left his home city.
The fourth stolen piece was a small double-sided painting depicting the Virgin and Child on one side and Christ with a Franciscan monk on the other. This work previously belonged to the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was purchased by the Sicilian regional government at a Christie's auction in 2003, the same year it was attributed to da Messina.
About the artist
Born around 1430, Antonello da Messina trained in Naples, where he absorbed influences from Provençal and Flemish painters that are visible throughout his work. Earlier this year, in February, the Italian government paid $14.9m (about £11m) at a New York auction to secure another rare da Messina work, Ecce Homo, a portrait of the suffering Christ dating from around 1460.
The theft occurred a day after Italian police recovered three paintings by French masters Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse, which had been stolen earlier this year from a private museum near the northern Italian city of Parma.
