After 30 Years, a Stolen Renaissance Masterpiece Returns to Italy With a Show in the Artist’s Hometown

It took nearly 30 years, but the Italian police have
recovered Pinturicchio’s missing
masterpiece Madonna and Child.

The Italian police’s cultural heritage protection unit found the
painting, which was stolen from a private home in 1990, but have
revealed little about its whereabouts since. It will soon be
returned to its owners, but first it’s going on view at
the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia, Pinturicchio’s
hometown.

“This latest recovery makes me particularly happy,” the
country’s cultural heritage minister, Alberto Bonisoli, said in a
video message played at the painting’s unveiling on August 10,
“because another fragment of our immense cultural heritage is back
in our country.”

The work is going on view alongside works by two other artists
of the Perugian school, Bartolomeo
Caporali and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, under
whom Pinturicchio is believed to have studied.

“This recovery demonstrates, once again, the increasingly
transnational character of criminal activities in this sector,”
said Fabrizio Parrulli, commander of the unit, at the painting’s
unveiling. He called on law enforcement in other countries to
create “a consolidated system of international cooperation to
effectively combat crimes against our cultural heritage.”

Born Bernardino di Betto, Pinturicchio earned his nickname,
which means “little painter,” because of his diminutive
stature. The artist worked as an assistant to Pietro Perugino
on the more famous painter’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Today,
the two artists are among the stars of the Galleria Nazionale
dell’Umbria’s collection.

Later, Pinturicchio was commissioned to create work of his own
at the Vatican, painting frescoes in a suite of six rooms in the
Bogia Apartments in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, now part
of the Vatican Library. Five of the six paintings can still be seen
today.

“Madonna col Bambino
attribuita a Pinturicchio” is on view at the Galleria
Nazionale dell’Umbria, Corso Vannucci, 19, Perugia, Italy, August
8, 2019–January 26, 2020. 

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Returns to Italy With a Show in the Artist’s Hometown appeared
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