{"id":21812,"date":"2025-07-25T03:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/21812\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T03:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:17:13","slug":"a-stolen-renaissance-painting-found-in-england-has-been-returned-to-italy-after-52-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/21812\/","title":{"rendered":"A Stolen Renaissance Painting Found in England Has Been Returned to Italy After 52 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Investigators have tracked down and solved an art heist that took place more than half a century ago. Antonio Solario\u2019s Madonna and Child was stolen from the Civic Museum of Belluno, a town 62 miles north of Venice, in 1973. However, there was a catch to retrieving the painting: The person in possession of the stolen artwork didn\u2019t actually steal it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artrecovery.com\/solario\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:According to the report released;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">According to the report released<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artrecovery.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Art Recovery International;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Art Recovery International<\/a> (ARI), which handles the recovery of stolen and looted works of art, Barbara de Dozsa, the Baroness de Dozsa, inherited the painting from her late ex-husband. The Baron allegedly bought the painting in good faith in Austria in 1973, shortly after the painting had been stolen. He later brought it back to his Norfolk estate, where it remained for the next five decades, stumping authorities as to its whereabouts. It wasn\u2019t until the Baroness tried to sell it at a regional auction house in 2017 that it turned up on anyone\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Art Recovery International\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"1280\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/020a79badd3d119b2a5642c015059043.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Christopher Marinello, founder and CEO of Art Recovery International, holding the stolen artwork. Art Recovery International<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Initially, Baroness de Dozsa rebuffed ARI\u2019s efforts to reclaim the painting for its rightful owners, the museum in Belluno, which acquired the painting in 1872. She initially cited the UK Limitations Act of 1980, which states that a buyer of stolen goods can become the legal owner if the purchase was unrelated to the theft and six years have passed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cNonsense,\u201d said Christopher A. Marinello, an art lawyer and ARI founder, in the report. \u201cWhile the UK Limitations Act certainly supported her position, the fact that the painting was listed on the Interpol and Carabinieri stolen art databases meant that the painting could never be sold, exhibited, or even transported without the risk of being seized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Antonio Solario\u2019s Madonna and Child\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"1280\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2f30ca7f75ffd2e7c18cef33d89aa57a.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A formal ceremony was held at the Civic Museum of Belluno to celebrate the painting\u2019s return. Art Recovery International<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After some convincing, Barbara de Dozsa handed the painting over to ARI, and it was formally returned to the Civic Museum of Belluno, where it will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DMZoiW7MA3w\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:on display until July 27;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">on display until July 27<\/a>. After that, it will undergo a formal restoration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">You Might Also Like<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investigators have tracked down and solved an art heist that took place more than half a century ago.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[13947,6225,6485,6486,13948,13949,1120,96,13946,12786,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-21812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-ari","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-barbara-de-dozsa","tag-christopher-a-marinello","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-recovery-international","tag-stolen-art","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}