Spanish Police Recover a 16th-Century Virgin Relief Stolen 16 Years Ago From Monastery
Spanish National Police and Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra announced on Tuesday that they recovered a 16th-century gilded and polychromed carved wooden relief stolen in 2010 from the Monastery of Santa Clara de Fitero in Navarre. The work, linked to the school of Renaissance artist Juan de Anchieta, depicts Saint Bonaventure and had passed through multiple buyers before being found at an auction house in Barcelona, where police recovered it before it could be sold. The months-long investigation, called Operation Salvatierra, traced the object after it resurfaced at Madrid’s Sunday Rastro market; police seized it from the Barcelona auction house in April. On Tuesday it was returned via the Archdiocese of Pamplona and Tudela to a church in Fitero, identified as the rightful owner.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Restitution Returns, Museums Face the Axe