Multi-million euro art heist: Thieves steal 4 Renaissance masterpieces from Sicilian museum
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Multi-million euro art heist: Thieves steal 4 Renaissance masterpieces from Sicilian museum Photograph: (Credit: X)
Thieves stole four priceless Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina from the Regional Museum of Messina during a holiday break.
During Italian holiday, a Louvre-like heist took place when thieves stole four Renaissance masterpieces by Antonello da Messina from a Sicilian museum. The overnight theft occurred on Saturday evening during Ferragosto, an Italian national holiday coinciding with La Vara, a major local religious festival.
Bypassing sophisticated alarm systems, the thieves broke into a security display box and stole four painted wood panels. Antonello, born around 1430 and trained in Naples under Flemish and Provençal influences, is credited with introducing Flemish oil-painting techniques to Italy, allowing for new levels of softness, glazing, and precise detail.
Also read: $100 million Louvre heist set for big-screen adaptation; French filmmaker Romain Gavras to direct
The stolen items include three of five surviving panels from the Polittico di San Gregorio altarpiece, one of Antonello's most vital works. Originally featuring six panels created for the Monastero di San Gregorio (destroyed in the 1908 earthquake), it was the painter's only artwork that had never left Messina. The fourth stolen piece was a small double-sided painting showing the Virgin and Child with a Franciscan monk on one side and Christ on the other. Formerly in the Wilhelm Soldan collection, it was purchased from Christie’s by the Sicilian regional government in 2003, the year of its attribution to Antonello.
The gang initially took six paintings, but two panels were inexplicably left behind on a low wall outside the museum. Museum Director Marisa Mercurio called the incident an extremely serious loss of immense cultural, artistic, and symbolic importance. Art historian Valentina Certo noted that losing works that survived five centuries of history and the devastating 7.1-magnitude 1908 earthquake—which killed half of Messina's population is a deep wound to the city's identity.
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Also read: $100 million Louvre heist set for big-screen adaptation; French filmmaker Romain Gavras to direct
Messina prosecutors and police are investigating the crime, utilising the museum's surveillance cameras. Inquiries are exploring if the theft was aimed at the illicit art market or commissioned for an art dealer. This incident follows recent news in Italian art: in February, the Italian government acquired Antonello's c. 1460 masterpiece Ecce Homo for $14.9 million at Sotheby's in New York. Additionally, Italian police recently recovered stolen works by Cézanne, Renoir, and Matisse previously taken from a private museum near Parma.
