The ancient niche portal with “The mysteries of the Rosary, San Domenico and Santa Caterina da Siena”, a work by an unknown Ligurian painter created in oil on canvas between 1690 and 1710, has returned home after 27 years.
The painting, stolen in the parish of Sanguineto (fraction of Chiavari), had been presented by an antique dealer from the province of Parma to the export office of the Superintendence of Bologna, to be sold abroad. The investigations requested by the Superintendency of Bologna from that of Genoa and the Carabinieri, however, made it possible to identify the work as the one stolen by some thieves, after 1997, in Sanguineto itself.
Although the work was not registered among the assets to be searched for in the database of the Carabinieri command for the protection of cultural heritage (TPC), the provenance of the painting was ascertained with certainty after a careful comparison between the photo in the catalog of the Ministry of Culture and that of the well presented to the Superintendence.
The ancient portal was therefore promptly seized by the TPC police in order to prevent its further commercialization and thus its dispersion outside national borders.
At the conclusion of the investigations conducted by the Carabinieri, coordinated and directed first by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Parma and then by that of Genoa, the investigating judge of the Ligurian capital ordered the return of the precious painting to the Episcopal Curia of Chiavari, returning it to the community with the relocation in parish.
The portal – measuring 264 x 187 cm – was returned on Monday 27 May by the commander of the Carabinieri TPC unit of Bologna to the bishop of Chiavari. The ceremony took place in the presence of the provincial commander of the Carabinieri of Genoa, the deputy mayor of Chiavari and an art historian from the Superintendence for the Metropolitan City of Genoa and the province of La Spezia.
