Earlier it was reported that the Italian police found the stolen 40 years ago by French painter Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard. Two paintings were stolen in London in the 70s of the last century.
Cost Gauguin painting could reach 13 to 41 million dollars, paintings by Bonnard – about 800 thousand dollars. Such assessments have led to a special press conference, representatives of the Italian police department dealing with cultural heritage.
Minister of Culture of Italy Dario Franceschini said that we are talking about the movie “Fruit on a table or a quiet life with a small dog” and Gauguin’s “Woman with two chairs” Bonnard. Both work to steal stored in one of the collections of London. Who owned them, not specified.
In 1975 the painting at auction lost things gained working the Italian automaker Fiat. At the auction of the paintings were lost and found one of the railway stations on the way Paris-Turin – their supposedly forgotten the train. Unsuspecting Italian paid for work about 32 dollars. Paintings hung 40 years in the kitchen at home working first in Turin and then in Sicily.
The true origin of the pictures set only last month. This was preceded by a long police investigation. According to the BBC BBC Italian son noticed similarities between the picture of his father and other work of Gauguin, he had seen in the book. After consultation with experts family appealed to the police. Investigators found that the work of Gauguin disappeared from catalogs art exhibitions of 1970. Then they studied media reports of the time and went on a family living in London.
“It’s an incredible story, a surprising discovery. Crown all the work that led behind the scenes by the Italian police on cultural heritage for all these years”, – said Franceschini, commenting on the find. Italy Police Department for Cultural Heritage was established in 1969 and became the first such unit in the world. Police have access to the world’s largest database of stolen works of art, including about 5.7 million objects.
