Move along folks, nothing to see here... (ctd.)
February 11 2015
Picture: Die Welt
Great excitement in the press today about a '£90m lost Leonardo seized by Italian police in a Swiss bank vault'. Art history headlines rarely get much better than that. Here is Reuter's report:
Police have seized a portrait attributed to Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci from the vault of a Swiss bank during an investigation into tax crime and insurance fraud, an Italian court said on Tuesday.
Negotiations to sell the oil painting of a fifteenth-century noblewoman, Isabella D'Este, for around 120 million euros ($135.9 million) were at an advanced stage, the prosecutor's office in Pesaro, Italy, said in a statement.
Police were first alerted to the existence of a possible da Vinci after a southern Italian lawyer was found in 2013 with a warrant to sell it for no less than 95 million euros. But the initial investigation failed to find the painting.
A separate investigation into tax crimes and insurance fraud uncovered evidence that eventually led police to the picture, which they seized on Monday in Lugano, near the Swiss-Italian border.
Except - the picture isn't by Leonardo. Long standing readers may remember the painting from back in 2013, when it first surfaced as a 'newly discovered Leonardo'.
All of which raises some interesting questions. First, that the Italian police need to get hold of some good art historians, so they don't waste any more time chasing rainbows. Second, that if indeed the picture was about to be sold for the absurd amount of €120 million, then some poor sod has had a lucky escape thanks to the police. And finally, if indeed some fellow, be it the seller or the owner of the painting, is charged with illegally exporting the picture from Italy, he can easily get off by saying - in all truth - ah, this picture isn't by Leonardo, and it's a pretty worthless copy. Therefore, it is not covered by Italian art export laws. But then, of course, they'll lose any chance of a sale...
Update - here is a picture of the painting being liberated from the Swiss bank vault. I wonder if this whole thing is a clever piece of marketing...
