Check Your Cupboards! A Stolen 500 year old Painting was Found in a Naples Cupboard

(Photo: Recovered painting with Italian Police back in the Doma Museum. Credit  BBC News) 

The COVID19 Pandemic has closed museums and some churches around the world, and apparently someone was "working in" or "visiting" the Doma collection in the San Domenico Maggiore church, when it was closed. Then they walked off with a 500 year old painting and hid it in their apartment's cupboard (before they could sell it). Somehow the Polizia (Police) in Italy found out about it, broke in, found it, and arrested the thief. 

Here's a summary of the story I put together from news stories (BBC News and others) 

A painting of Salvator Mundi was found in a bedroom cupboard in Naples on Saturday, January 17, 2021.  The 36-year-old owner of the apartment (known as a flat in Italy) was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. "The painting was found on Saturday thanks to a brilliant and diligent police operation," Naples prosecutor Giovanni Melillo told the AFP news agency. The artwork is usually part of the Doma Museum collection at the San Domenico Maggiore church in Naples. 

 Officials were not aware it had been stolen because "the room where the painting is kept has not been open for three months" due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is not known who actually painted it, but some experts believe Leonardo DiVinci's student Giacomo Alibrandi may have done so in the early 1500s. It's a painting of Christ with one hand raised, with the other holding a glass sphere (and no one knows what that's supposed to symbolize, either). I will say that when I first looked at it, it looked like a woman, because of the low-cut clothing... 

Photo: San Domenico Maggiore church. Credit: www.visitnaples.eu)  

 

I checked the internet and found out that the last time it sold was 2017, and the buyer apparently donated it to the Doma Museum. When it was sold in 2017, the painting became the most expensive ever sold when it was auctioned for a record $450m (£341m) in 2017.

ORIGINAL STORY:  

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55719685