Stolen 18Th-Century Painting Of St. Francis Returned To A Mexican Church

Stolen 18Th-Century Painting Of St. Francis Returned To A Mexican Church

Stolen 18Th-Century Painting Of St. Francis Returned To A Mexican Church – supplied to Art Net as a courtesy by Morton Subastas Auctioneers 7 years ago, a Mexican fine art auctioneer submitted their upcoming auction catalogue to a database of stolen art as part of a due diligence process that’s pretty standard in the industry. Analysts flipped through the pages of paintings and portraits, clearing each one in turn, before coming to a 6-foot-tall work of Saint Francis of Assisi, dating to the 18th century. According to Art Loss Register, such a painting had been reported stolen more than 15 years earlier from a church consecrated in the name of the saint some 25 miles northeast of Mexico City, in Teotihuacan. The consignor had information linking the painting to Texas, but it was falsified, and after a few years of double and triple checking, Padre Teodoro García Romero of the San Francisco de Asis church beamed a 6-figure smile as he welcomed the 5-figure artwork back to its rightful place…