Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Rome (CNN) --
Two stolen paintings by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard hung
on an Italian factory worker's kitchen wall for almost 40 years -- without his
knowing just how valuable they were.
Now worth
millions of euros, the artworks were stolen from a family house in London in
1970 and then abandoned on a Paris-to-Turin train.
Italy's
Culture Ministry unveiled the two paintings Wednesday after they were recovered
by police specialized in finding stolen art, following an
"incredible" series of events.
The
paintings were put away in the Italian Railways lost and found storage
facility. At a lost-property auction in 1975, the unsuspecting Fiat worker paid
45,000 Italian lire for them -- roughly equivalent to 22 euros ($30). The man
was an art lover, but he had no idea of the real value of the paintings, police
said.
The man,
whom police did not name, hung the works in his Turin home before taking them
to Sicily when he retired.
Italian
heritage police were alerted last summer when a friend of the worker grew
suspicious of their value.
"There
are all the elements for a nice novel; it is very unique," Gen. Mariano
Mossa, head of the Italian Heritage Police, said at a news conference.
Locked up
in a safe
Police
soon matched the works with those stolen in London. A notice of the theft had
appeared in The New York Times on July 6, 1970.
The
Gauguin painting, titled "Fruits sur une Table ou Nature au Petit
Chien" ("Fruits on a Table or Still Life with a Small Dog"), is
said to have been painted in 1889 and thought to be worth between 10 million
and 30 million euros, police said.
The
Bonnard painting is titled "La Femme aux Deux Fauteuils" ("Woman
with Two Armchairs").
Gauguin
was a post-impressionist artist, and Bonnard is regarded as one of the greatest
colorists of modern art.
It was
still unclear to whom the paintings would be returned, as the couple they were
stolen from have died, apparently leaving no heirs. For now, they will remain
in a police safe.
The theft
that created a legend
Art
looted by Nazis found in German apartment
Source:
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