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The stolen work of 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio belonging to a Ukrainian museum was recovered by police in Berlin, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
The painting, called the "Taking of Christ," or the "Kiss of Judas," was stolen in July 2008 from the Museum of Western and Eastern Arts in Ukraine’s southern city of Odessa.
According to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Anatoly Mogilev, Ukrainian and German police detained four thieves last week, one German national and three Ukrainians, who are expected to be extradited to Ukraine. The criminals were attempting to sell the painting when they were caught, the minister said.
Police officials said that the detainees were leaders of an international crime ring that has been committing robberies for over 11 years.
In a coordinated operation, Ukrainian police arrested three other gang members in Ukraine.
“The criminals have been operating in Ukrainian territory for several years, committing professional robberies,” said Mogilev, adding that they targeted expensive properties in and around Kyiv.
Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko told Today newspaper that an undercover agent had infiltrated the gang in order to find the painting and execute a successful sting operation.
The recovered painting was found severely damaged with several vertical cracks and a lot of wear. The cost of the famous painting is estimated at upward of $100 million, according to staff at the Odessa museum.
“It is terrible! I do not know how the painting would have been transported … to incur such brutal damage,” said the director of the Odessa museum Vladimir Ostrovskiy, on the Ukrainian TV channel Inter.
Police officials speculate that the thieves are not arts experts, but stole the work because they were aware of its price tag.
Despite the high profile robbery, there are doubts if the stolen painting is even genuine. Art expert Victor Fedchishin told Inter. that there are no living experts specializing at Caravaggio’s works. The last qualified Caravaggio specialist, Italian Roberto Longhi died in 1970. At one time Longhi had examined a photo of the painting and declared “categorically that it was a duplicate,” Fedchishin said.
Caravaggio was known for being pompous, rebellious, hot-tempered, and brilliant whose fits of hard work were interspersed with fits of drunkenness. He once killed a man in a duel and was seriously maimed in a bar fight. He died of a fever in 1610 at the age 39.
Andrey Volkov, www.theepochtimes.com
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Stolen Caravaggio recovered in Germany
