Divine intervention
David Blackburn 5:42pm
In July 2008, a gang of mafiosos with a sophisticated aesthetic sense, stole, rather aptly in view of its title, Carravagio’s The Taking of Christ from Odessa’s Museum of Western and Eastern. Tragically, the painting has not been recovered, but today the museum’s director, Alexander Kosolapov, is hailing a miracle. One of the museum’s unidentified works, a sixteenth century portrait of a man wearing the ceremonial garb of the Venetian Doge, has been attributed to Titian or Tintoretto by Vladimir Ostrvsky, director of the Hermitage. Kosolapov said:
"We know it is a 16th Century Venetian painting, most likely either by Titian or Tintoretto. But right now it is not fully clear. Now we are nearly 100% certain that God has compensated us for the terrible loss that we suffered last year."
Flushed with success, Kosolapov has invited a phalanx of directors from the Hermitage to analyse his collection’s other unidentified works. Hmm… What do we think is more the probable force at work here? The spirit of God? Or the spirit of Bernard Berenson?
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Jeremy
December 3rd, 2009 7:03pm Report this comment"In July 2008, a gang of mafiosos with a sophisticated aesthetic sense, stole, rather aptly in view of its title, Carravagioâ™s The Taking of Christ from Odessaâ™s Museum of Western and Eastern. Tragically, the painting has not been recovered..."
Art thefts of this sort are particularly worrying. In recent years I have heard or read about a number of carefully targeted thefts of valuable works of art. My questions are these: Who asks for these thefts to be carried out? Who arranges them? Who carries them out? What happens to the stolen works of art? And where do they go?
Beer Moth
December 4th, 2009 8:48pm Report this comment'...always my intention, so I take...my...time'
sorry but I love that song.
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