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The Embassy of Italy plays a role in the recovery of two stolen artworks

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The Embassy of Italy in Ottawa and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs contributed to the recovery of two important stolen Italian art works. The masterpieces, of priceless artistic, historic, and religious value, were found in Canada and recently returned to Italy.

The first is a bas-relief of Madonna and Child by Luca and Andrea della Robbia, dated to the end of the 15th century, and the second an altarpiece depicting episodes of the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary, attributed to 14th-century Italian painter Manfredino da Pistoia.

The bas-relief was stolen in 1971 from the Church of St. John the Baptist in Scansano and identified by the Carabinieri in 2013 among items sold at auction in New York. The work was then traced to the home of a Canadian collector who had purchased it in good faith.

The altarpiece was stolen in 1988 from a private home in Varazze and recovered in London, England in February 2019 from a Canadian collector.

Thanks to sensitive and productive negotiations with the Security Attaché of the Embassy of Italy both works have been returned to Italy where they were officially presented, together with other recovered works of art, in Rome on April 17th, at a conference by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, in the presence of the Italian Minister of Culture, Alberto Bonisoli.