Rare Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina stolen from Sicilian museum
Summary
Four rare Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Messina, Sicily, during the national holiday on August 15. Thieves broke into the museum, bypassed alarms, and took important wood panels and a small double-sided painting.Key Facts
- The theft happened at the regional museum of Messina, also called MuMe.
- Thieves took three panels from the Polittico di San Gregorio, an important altarpiece by Antonello da Messina.
- The altarpiece originally had six panels made for a monastery destroyed in 1908.
- A small double-sided painting showing the Virgin and Child, with Christ and a Franciscan monk, was also stolen.
- This painting was bought by the Sicilian regional government in 2003 and is attributed to da Messina.
- Antonello da Messina was a 15th-century artist who studied in Naples and was influenced by Provençal and Flemish painters.
- In February, the Italian government bought another da Messina masterpiece, Ecce Homo, at an auction in New York for $14.9 million.
- The theft came just after Italian police recovered stolen paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, and Matisse earlier in the year.
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