The fact is that there were paintings in a vault at the Lingotto: according to the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, based on a note from the Milanese Financial Police, they are some of the 13 missing paintings by the Agnellis. The Turin prosecutors, however, are convinced that only two are original while the others are copies: who is right? This will be established by a consultancy that the Turin magistrates have entrusted to art experts, who will be responsible for giving a definitive answer on those mysterious paintings. And finally resolve the mystery that is causing three generations of Agnelli to argue.
The starting point is that, for years, 13 masterpieces belonging to the lawyer Gianni Agnelli have been missing. Paintings by Monet, Picasso and Balla that have disappeared and that his daughter Margherita Agnelli wants to recover, convinced that they are hers: apparently, they furnished the family’s most famous properties, Villa Frescot and Villar Perosa in Turin (as well as a Roman residence) , residences of which Margherita had bare ownership before her mother Marella Caracciolo died. Who, apparently, gave her works to her grandchildren John, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann.
Now a report has emerged filed with the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza in the investigation which led Judge Lidia Castellucci to dismiss the case of a Swiss gallery owner and one of his collaborators accused of receiving stolen goods. Furthermore, the investigating judge ordered further investigations at Margherita’s suggestion in her opposition to the dismissal request.
The Fiamme Gialle information was drawn up on the basis of the testimonies reported in the document by Paola Montalto and Tiziana Russi. That is, Marella Caracciolo’s secretary and housekeeper, who took care of the inventories of the inherited assets. The two women, interviewed together with a third person in the service of the lawyer’s wife, gave the turning point to the research: according to them, those canvases by Monet, Picasso, Balla and De Chirico were on the walls of the Roman apartment in Palazzo Albertini-Carandini, of which Margherita has bare ownership, and which were then donated to the three Elkann grandchildren by their grandmother. These declarations were corroborated: as emerged following the three depositions, almost all the works were found during an inspection by the Guardia di Finanza on 8 February, delegated by the Turin prosecutor’s office in the main investigation into the inheritance. They were almost all in the FCA Security vault while one would be in a house in St. Moritz (and a copy of it in the Agnelli art gallery in via Nizza).
On the case, sources close to Margherita clarify that «the paintings reported in the Milan proceedings (which continue) cannot have been donated, as Marella did not have ownership of them. Furthermore, no donation document has been formalized to date. However, if the rumors were confirmed, the documents would be invalid and the immediate return of the works which are and remain the property of Margherita Agnelli would be requested.”
For now the mystery remains because the Turin Prosecutor’s Office, which investigates the legacy of the Lawyer and Marella Caracciolo, is convinced that there were only two originals at the Lingotto: Balthus’ “La chambre” and Gérome’s “Pho Xai”. Instead, Monet’s “Glacon Effet Blanc”, Balla’s “The Stairway of Farewells” and De Chirico’s “Mystery and Melancholy of a Street” would be copies. So where are the originals? Some answers could come from Giorgio Ghilardini, i.e. “the man of the Agnelli paintings”: the transporter, now 76 years old, told us in an interview how he moved the paintings from one residence to another. But he had been unable to say anything about the missing works. The mystery deepens, also because, among the dozens of papers found in homes and offices by financiers, there is a white folder labeled “Works of art 2003-2019” and a green one with the writing “Temporary and definitive exports”. Is the explanation of the mystery in there?
