Four artworks by 15th-century painter\u00a0Antonello\u00a0da\u00a0Messina\u00a0have been stolen overnight from the Museo Regionale di\u00a0Messina, Italian media reported, citing a statement from the museum\u2019s directorship.<\/p>\n
The theft deprives\u00a0Messina\u00a0of parts of the only surviving work by the Renaissance painter to have remained in his native city, as well as a small painting acquired by the Sicilian Region two decades ago.<\/p>\n
A museum official reached by Reuters said they could not provide any information.<\/p>\n
They took three of the remaining five panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio. Antonello da Messina<\/p>\n
The thieves entered the museum on the night of August 15, a national holiday in Italy and the peak of the summer season, media said.<\/p>\n
They took three of the remaining five panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio.<\/p>\n
Originally comprising six panels and destined for a local monastery known as Monastero San Gregorio, which was destroyed by\u00a0Messina\u2019s 1908 earthquake, the altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter to have never left his hometown.<\/p>\n
The thieves took a fourth artwork from a secure display case: a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and the Christ on the other.<\/p>\n
The work was part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold by Christie\u2019s to the Sicilian Region in 2003, the year it was attributed to\u00a0Antonello\u00a0da\u00a0Messina.<\/p>\n
The altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter to have never left his hometown. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The thieves took a fourth artwork from a secure display case: a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and the Christ on the other. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The theft took place after\u00a0Italian police on Friday\u00a0recovered three paintings by French masters Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were stolen from a museum near the northern city of Parma in March.<\/p>\n
Born around 1430,\u00a0Antonello\u00a0da\u00a0Messina\u00a0trained in Naples where he studied the works of Proven\u00e7al and Flemish artists, whose influence is apparent in his works.<\/p>\n
He returned to\u00a0Messina\u00a0in 1457, where he worked until 1474.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four artworks by 15th-century painter\u00a0Antonello\u00a0da\u00a0Messina\u00a0have been stolen overnight from the Museo Regionale di\u00a0Messina, Italian media reported, citing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[75,26572,5,77,243],"class_list":["post-40447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-art","tag-heists","tag-italy","tag-painting","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}