Thieves have stolen almost 50 pieces of gold jewelry by the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni worth 1.2 million euros (US$1.31 million) in a targeted hit on an exhibition in northern Italy, curators said on Saturday.
A “highly specialized gang” on Wednesday night made off with almost the entire collection of rings, bracelets, pendants and sculptures by Mastroianni, considered one of Italy’s greatest contemporary sculptors, on display at the Vittoriale degli Italiani estate on Lake Garda.
Only one of the 49 items in the collection was recovered elsewhere on the estate, the Vittoriale said in a statement after a news conference on the theft.
Photo: Dino Capodiferro / Il Vittoriale degli Italiani / AFP
“These exceptional artifacts, true ‘wearable sculptures,’ represent the most important testimony of the master’s gold production,” Center for Studies of the Works of Umberto Mastroianni president Lorenzo Zichichi said.
If the pieces are not recovered, the theft — almost the entire collection of Mastroianni’s gold, which belonged to his relatives — would represent an “inestimable loss,” Zichichi said.
The exhibition, entitled “Like a warm and fluid gold. The golds of Umberto Mastroianni,” opened in December last year at the Museo d’Annunzio Segreto and was due to close on Friday.
The works were designed and forged by Mastroianni — also known for his huge monuments — from the 1950s until his death in 1998.
“Of the 49 works subject to the theft ... only one, entitled Man/Woman, was later found inside the complex,” the Vittoriale said, without providing further details.
Vittoriale director Giordano Bruno Guerri said he could not go into details of the robbery, which was under investigation by police and art specialists.
“But we can say that our alarm systems are very extensive and already of the highest level. We were evidently hit by a highly specialized gang,” Guerri said.
Other jewels next to the Mastroianni pieces were “not even touched,” he added.
Mastroianni’s works include monuments in several Italian towns honoring the World War II resistance movement.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees