The four works stolen from the MuMe
The works by Antonello da Messina stolen from the MuMe are three of the five surviving panels from the San Gregorio Polyptych, signed and dated 1473, as well as a rare double-sided panel depicting the Madonna and Child and the Christ in Pietà. The theft affects a group of works of particular significance for the history of Sicilian Renaissance painting. The San Gregorio Polyptych is, in fact, the only work by Antonello remaining in his hometown. Commissioned in 1473 for the monastery attached to the church of Santa Maria extra moenia, the work originally consisted of six panels, assembled within a wooden frame that has since been lost. Over time, the ensemble was dismantled and one of the panels was lost: prior to the theft, therefore, only five panels remained.
The removal of three of these panels constitutes a further serious mutilation of a work that had already survived to the present day in a fragmentary state. Its provenance from the monastery of San Gregorio is documented and links the work directly to the religious and artistic history of Messina in the fifteenth century. The polyptych also bears the artist’s signature and the date on a cartouche situated on the central panel.
Along with the three panels, a small panel painted on both sides was stolen; this is a small-scale work intended for private devotion. On one side is a depiction of the Madonna and Child giving a blessing, with a Franciscan friar in adoration; on the other, Christ in the Pietà. The panel also has a distinctive provenance: it was attributed to Antonello in 2003 and, in the same year, was sold by Christie’s to the Sicilian Regional Government, having come from the collection of Wilhelm Soldan.
