As mentioned in our last blog post, it can sometimes take decades to recover a stolen artwork, or even longer. Such was the case with the 1979 cat burglar-style painting theft in which the thief abseiled thirty metres from one of the highest windows of the Pinacoteca di Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio, Italy, using a mountaineering rope. Once inside, the thief made off with a painting, the Madonna del Melograno, which depicts Mary gazing upon a delicately clothed Christ Child, with a youthful Saint John the Baptist to her left. The artwork was initially associated with the school of Filippo Lippi, but was later attributed to his follower, Pier Francesco Fiorentino (1444–1499).

Forty-five years later, the artwork was identified by the Italian Carabinieri when the painting’s current good-faith owner contacted law enforcement, having discovered the artwork in an underground cellar in the city of Imola.

Art theft cases are often more challenging to investigate than traditional thefts due to the unique nature of the stolen items and the specialised knowledge required to trace them.  Unlike mass-produced goods, artworks are typically one-of-a-kind or part of a limited series, making them harder to sell on the traditional art market, provided sufficient records have been kept by the original owners.  It is for this reason, that stolen paintings sometimes take decades to resurface or, as in this instance, are simply abandoned when the thief realises its a lot harder to sell a "hot" painting than he or she imagined, or when said thief does not have access to the kinds of buyers willing to purchase a stolen painting. 

Likewise, artworks can be concealed and transported across borders before being sold in locations where the source country’s theft records are unavailable, where they can sit unnoticed in good-faith buyer collections for decades.  It is usually during black market circulation that a painting’s provenance is fabricated or obscured and you begin to see stolen paintings in circulation on the licit market.  

Additionally, the high value and cultural significance of stolen art attract sophisticated criminals who often exploit gaps in international law enforcement coordination marketing these works to buyers after the statute of limitations for bad faith dealing has long past. Investigators must also contend with the niche expertise needed to authenticate art and must distinguish genuine pieces from forgeries.

As always, the first step in identifying stolen artwork involves dataset comparisons, as in the case of the Madonna del Melograno.  By finding points of commonality between documented archival photographs of the stolen artwork and close inspection of the suspect work, investigators can confirm on object match or determine if the work presented is a copy or forgery. 

On the left, the image of the stolen work provided to the Carabinieri TPC by authorities in Gubbio. On the right, the image of the seized work.

As can be seen by the highlighted areas, the Carabinieri were able to visually confirm that the painting found in the Imola cellar, was in fact the artwork which had been stolen by the cat burglar in Gubbio forty-five years ago.