It is probably not a long-lost painting by Michelangelo. It almost certainly was not stolen by a sophisticated gang of international art thieves — but the disappearance of a painting that a priest claimed resembled a work by the Renaissance master has Belgian investigators scratching their heads.
The wood-mounted art piece The Silence of Our Lady was on Friday last week snatched from the Saint Ludger Church in the town of Zele, 50km northwest of Brussels.
The priest, Jan Van Raemdonck, said that it could be a Michelangelo, and an Italian art expert was due any day to come and authenticate it.
Photo: AP
Police have obtained grainy security video of a man walking near the scene before dawn with what appears to be a painting propped up against his head.
That would be a feat in itself, as Van Raemdonck said it took three men to place the approximately 1.50m by 1m work on an easel just before Christmas.
“He was not very smart,” said Van Raemdonck, who was writing a book about the painting. “It was at 5:15 in the morning. Other people passed by him in their cars going to the train station, so I hope other people have seen where he has put that painting in his car, which car it is, and maybe that we can follow him.”
Beside the video, police also want to talk to a man aged 17 to 20 whom a witness saw near the church that morning, wearing a gray hoodie and carrying a dark backpack.
While finding out where the painting has gone is a challenge, establishing where it came from is almost a mystery in itself.
A Belgian lawmaker is thought to have bought it from a friend who was having financial difficulties. The lawmaker then sold it to an organization that helps the church.
Thirteen years ago, the organization gave it to the church in Zele. It languished in a corner where it could not be seen for 11 years, until Van Raemdonck moved it to a more prominent place. Just before Christmas, he proudly put it on display in the middle of the church.
Van Raemdonck said that he told very few people about his suspicions that the painting might be a Michelangelo.
However, despite his enthusiasm for the painting, art experts have said that it is extremely unlikely that the piece is a 16th-century masterpiece.
“This painting is a relatively close copy of Michelangelo’s prototype,” Free University of Brussels art history professor Didier Martens said on Wednesday.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS