On the final day of 2006, a significant piece of Mexico’s cultural and religious heritage was stolen. The polychrome Santa Rosa de Lima statue, a vibrant 3-foot-tall depiction of the beloved saint holding baby Jesus, vanished from a church in the town of Epazoyucan, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. The statue, depicted the standing saint holding a child, and crowned with roses, represented more than artistic beauty; it symbolised centuries of devotion to the saint, said known for both her life of severe penance and her care of the poverty stricken in the Spanish Empire.
For nearly a decade, the whereabouts of the statue were unknown. Then, in January 2017, the stolen artefact surfaced in an unexpected location: the Peyton Wright Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This gallery, known for showcasing valuable Pre-Columbian artefacts, as well as textiles, sculptures, and Spanish Colonial devotional objects, listed the statue for sale on its website, where its photograph caught the attention of Mexican authorities. The discovery in turn prompted an investigation by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with special agent Robert Nelson taking the lead.
Tracing the Statue’s Journey
In March 2017, following discussions with HSI, gallery owner John Schaefer voluntarily turned over the statue to U.S. authorities before a search warrant was issued. However, the mystery of how the statue crossed the Mexico-U.S. border remained unsolved.
Court filings and statements revealed that the statue had passed through several hands since its theft. Samuel Silverman, a businessman and former storage facility owner in New Mexico, had consigned the statue to the Sante Fe gallery. According to Silverman, the religious statue had been abandoned by a former renter who left behind unpaid storage fees in 2007. After numerous failed attempts to contact the renter, Silverman sought to recoup his losses by consigning the statue to John Schaefer’s gallery.
In April 2017, the statue was officially seized by U.S. authorities and placed in a vault at Homeland Security’s El Paso office. This marked a significant step in recovering the stolen object, but its journey back to Mexico would be far from swift.
The Long Road to Repatriation
Despite its identification and seizure in 2017, the Santa Rosa de Lima statue did not return to Mexico until December 2024—more than seven years later. The reasons for this delay remain unclear, as do details about whether legal disputes or bureaucratic hurdles contributed to the extended timeline.
Upon its return, questions arose about the statue’s condition. The figure of baby Jesus, previously depicted with both arms intact, appears to have suffered damage, with the child's right arm now being missing. It is unknown whether the damage occurred during its time in storage, transit, or elsewhere.
Also of note, this is not the first time a stolen object has been identified at the Peyton Wright Gallery. In 2004, the Albuquerque Journal reported that US Federal agents seized a bas-relief carving from Mexico worth $225,000 from the gallery. That piece, like the Santa Rosa de Lima statue, had also been consigned by a third party, in this case, a Mexican national.
While the gallery cooperated with authorities in both instances, the pattern highlights the complexities of the art market, where stolen cultural heritage pieces can be bought or consigned and put up for sale by good faith purchasers despite having murky histories.
A Case That Speaks to Broader Issues
The saga of the Santa Rosa de Lima statue underscores several broader issues in art crime identification and restitution, including:
- the challenges of tracking stolen art and artefacts (in this case it took 11 years for the stolen artwork to surface);
- the slow wheels of international restitution, (from 2017 identification to 2024 restitution);
- and the importance of vigilance within the art market (accepting pieces on consignment that have insufficient provenance).
For the town of Epazoyucan, the return of the statue is bittersweet. While the beloved icon is back, the years of uncertainty and the damage it sustained serve as a reminder of the vulnerability and fragility of the country's religious cultural heritage.
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