Italian Critic Hunts For Stolen Art Works

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30172, 2 July 1963, Page 16

Italian Critic Hunts For Stolen Art Works

[Bv

JOHN EARLE]

(N.Z.P.A ,-Reut.r—CopyripM )

ROME. The Italian Government is still looking for more than 600 works of art looted by the Nazis during the war, according to Mr Rodolfo Siviero, head of a special department in the Foreign Ministry in Mr Siviero, who has tne personal rank of minister in th diplomatic s. "vice, has been searching since 1943—first with the Allies, then with the Italian Government— tor treasures stolen by the Nazis He has retrieved more than 3000 works of art, of incalculable value, including paintings, statues, antiques, jewellery and archaeological remains. His chief exploit this winter has been the recovery in California of two paintings of Hercules by the fifteenth-century Florentine master, Antonio Pollaiuolo

At the same time Mr Siviero came across clues in California which led to the swift recovery in West Germany of five more Renaissance paintings, from a German butcher reported to live in Klenzestrasse in Munich These made seven out of a group of 10 paintings lost or looted together Mr Siviero says he is on the track of two more, and hopes for developments in coming months. He admits that he has no idea where the tenth is—a fine still-life by the Dutch painter, van Huyssum

An art critic and writer by profession, Mr Siviero lives and works, surrounded by work' of art. in a flat in the back of the historic Palazzo Venezia, from whose balcony Mussolini used to address the crowds'in Piazzo Venezia. He received this correspondent in mid-morning still wearing green pyjamas and a red tartan dressing gown. He explained that he had been up since seven o’clock talking with visiting agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. “They keep strange hours," he added.

In the immediate post-war years, it was simple enough to retrieve art collections and the whole contents of museums. The difficult police work of tracking down individual works of art came later. In all this work. Mr Siviero said, he wished to express appreciation for the co-operation of the West German Government. “They could not give back the dead from concentration camps, but they have been very

careful to restore works of art,” he said.

As an example of the problems of art sleuthing he told about a Madonna by the early sixteenth-century artist, Lorenzo di Credi, stolen ffiom the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which turned up in Tangiers a few years ago It was originally stolen by a German soldier who ended up in a prison camp in Germany. He swapped the masterpiece there with a United States soldier for food. The American gave k to his German girlfriend.

She sold it one day for virtually nothing to an itinerant junk dealer who told it to a small antique dealer. He in turn sold it to a laager antique dealer. It then left Germany, sold to an antique dealer in London, who in turn sold it—in good faith—to a rich man in Tangiera. Mr Siviero said.

The rich man, not sure of what he had bought, sent it to the National Gallery in London for expert appraisal. The National Gallery informed Italian authorities by telegram that it was the missing masterpiece. The man In Tangiere handed over the picture without asking for any compensation. His sleuthing. Mr Siviero stated, did not extend to trying to bring people to justice. He was interested in getting works of art back. The Italians inform the Government of the country wherever a work of art is found, and it is up to the authorities of the country concerned to put anyone on trial.

Mr Siviero said that among the more important individual works of art stW missing were the following: “Portrait of a Man" by MemUng; "Madonna with Child" by Pierino da Vinci; "Maooue of Paun" by Michelangelo and “Portrait of Ariosto" by Titian. All the pictures from the collection of the Bour-bon-Parma family, moot pictures from the Farnese collection and aU the Perkins Collection, so called from the American art historian who lived in Assisi are also missing Mr Siviero said he had not had time yet to contact the

governments of Communiet countries, though he believed from informal wnroaches that they would tive. He thought it likely that some treasures were in East Germany, and perhaps atoo in parts of Czechoslovakia. Poland or Hungary.