The Diplomat
Last Wednesday, the Italian Embassy hosted an event entitled Art Returned, in which two works of art that were stolen in Italy and have recently been recovered in Madrid thanks to the collaboration between the Spanish National Police and the Carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Protection Command were presented.
These are a 16th century gilded and silvered wooden reliquary bust of Saint Clement Pope, attributed to Aniello Stellato, which was kept in the Church of the Gesù in Lecce, stolen in 2019, and an oil on canvas by an anonymous 17th century Lombard entitled Lunch, belonging to a private collection in Bologna, stolen in 2000.
Ambassador Riccardo Guariglia, in the presence of General Roberto Riccardi, head of the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Command, and the Director General of the Spanish National Police, Francisco Pardo Piqueras, stressed “the importance of the fruitful cooperation that has been consolidated in recent years between the Spanish and Italian authorities also in the field of the fight against crime and in this specific case, the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage”.
The Italian ambassador also thanked the Historical Heritage Brigade of the Spanish National Police and the Carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Protection Command for “their constant efforts in this regard, through the recovery of stolen works and their subsequent return to their communities of origin”. In the same context, Riccardo Guariglia underlined “the fundamental role of cultural diplomacy between Italy and Spain, two countries characterised by a strong affinity, as well as by a common history that has always found in art and beauty a fertile and rich field of collaboration”.
The Director of Cultural and Scientific Relations of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guzmán Ignacio Palacios Fernández, and the Director General of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, Isaac Sastre de Diego, then took the floor, stressing the importance of culture as “an indispensable bridge between Italy and Spain”.
To conclude the exciting event, Ambassador Guariglia attended the formal handover of the two works of art by the Director General of the Spanish National Police to the head of the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Command. Also present at the event were two art historians, David García Cueto, from the Prado Museum, and Roberto Alonso Moral, from the Complutense University, who spoke about the two recovered works and gave technical and artistic information about them to the audience.
