Italy: the Secretary of State for Culture involved in a painting theft case

The Italian prosecutor's office announced on Tuesday that it had opened an investigation into the Secretary of State for Culture, suspected of having exhibited a painting previously modified in order to mask its illicit origin, accusations that he vigorously denies.

Vittorio Sgarbi, a famous historian and art critic appointed to the government by Giorgia Meloni, would have acted in such a way as to conceal the illegal obtaining of the painting, the public prosecutor's office in Macerata (center) told AFP. This announcement comes in the wake of the broadcast, by public television Rai, of a report devoted to a painting by the 17th century Italian artist Rutilio Manetti shown as part of an exhibition by Mr. Sgarbi in 2021 and almost identical to a painting stolen in 2013.

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The owner of The Capture of Saint Peter had reported the theft in her castle to the police, specifying that the painting had been cut up and removed from its frame, as told by Rai's Report program in December. According to her, a few weeks before the theft, a man came to ask her to buy it. This man was identified by Rai as a friend of Mr. Sgarbi. The same year, this man handed over a torn canvas to a restoration expert who told Rai that it was indeed the canvas stolen from the castle, then exhibited in 2021. Only one difference appears: a candle appears in the top left corner of the painting exhibited by the Secretary of State for Culture. According to the restaurateur, this detail was added after the theft, in order to deflect suspicion.

Vittorio Sgarbi, 71, a brilliant polemicist with a shady character accustomed to television sets, forcefully rejected all these suspicions, claiming to have found the painting in a villa - formerly the property of a noble family and where Pope Innocent X would have stayed in the 17th century -, bought by his mother in 2000. “There is no mystery, there are just two paintings,” he said Monday evening on the private channel Rete 4. According to him, the painting stolen in 2013 is a “bad copy” dating from the 19th century, while his is an original.

Still according to him, the restoration expert wanted revenge by speaking to the media because he owed him a large sum of money. Vittorio Sgarbi is the subject of another investigation, opened in October by the Italian competition watchdog, for having paid for his presence at conferences, a practice prohibited for members of the government.