08/03/2001

Due to the joint collaboration of the Carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Protection Units of Milan and Florence, one of the most sought after works of the last 28 years was recovered at the end of February: the Madonna col Bambino e San Giovannino by Lucas Cranach the Elder. This work, of 1514, is one of the few pictorial examples of the German artist in Italy. Signed with the monogram symbol representing a dragon with a crowned head, the work has an estimate of between $4-6 million ( € 4,295,806-6,444,319). The art thieves, active in Turin, were attempting to sell the masterpiece, stolen from the Pinacoteca della Certosa del Galluzzo in Florence in 1973, for $486,760 ( € 516,450). The painting will be kept among the masterpieces of the Uffizi’s German school. (Dorian Cara)