Cleveland Museum of Art has Buglioni work stolen from Italy. M5S parliamentarians call for its return

Coming to Parliament is the case of the Madonna and Child with Saints by Benedetto Buglioni (Florence, 1461 - 1521) preserved at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), in the United States: it is a glazed and glazed terracotta that represents one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance arts section of the American museum. The work, dating from the second decade of the sixteenth century and thus from the extreme phase of Buglioni’s activity, depicts the Virgin seated on a throne together with the infant Jesus, accompanied by Saints Francis and John Gualbert, and with three cherubs observing the protagonists from above. It is an important work, among the best of the last Buglioni, and one that is in an exceptional state of preservation, with the colors having well maintained their brilliance.

The dedicated fact sheet on the museum’s website traces the history of the sculpture’s provenance: it was donated to the Cleveland Art Museum in 1921 by Jeptha Homer Wade II, an American financier and philanthropist who had purchased it that same year from Galerie George Petit through the intermediary P.W. French & Co. Previously the work, which had belonged to German antiquarian Raoul Heilbronner, had been confiscated from the latter in 1914 by the French government as soon as World War I broke out (being German, Heilbronner was considered an enemy of France).

The provenance story, in the tab on the website, ends here. We do know, however, that there is evidence from ancient documents, at least as early as 1749, of the presence of a tabernacle with a terracotta Madonna with Saints Francis and John Gualbert at Ponte agli Stolli near Figline Valdarno, which was stolen in 1904 and given by many to be lost. The alleged perpetrators of the theft were tried in 1906 but without the work having resurfaced: however, it is known that the work was sent to France. It is therefore highly likely that the work in the Cleveland Museum of Art is the one stolen in 1904. Indeed, this is the way it appears to the Carabinieri’s Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (Cultural Heritage Protection Unit): in fact, Buglioni’s work is listed in the database of illegally stolen cultural property, where there is an old black-and-white photograph of the sculpture. The work will therefore have to be returned to Italy.

The case, as mentioned, has come to Parliament: a group of Five Star Movement parliamentarians led by Senator Margherita Corrado (Nicola Morra, Maria Domenica Castelleone, Elio Lannutti, Fabrizio Trentacoste, Luisa Angrisani, Bianca Laura Granato, Cristiano Anastasi and Elisa Pirro) is calling for the return of the work to Italy , urging Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini to take action so that the U.S. returns the work. In a parliamentary question tabled on Thursday, the Pentastellates in fact ask whether the minister “intends to report whether, in the face of the timely reporting to his Ministry of what was ascertained by the Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale some 20 years ago, Italian cultural diplomacy took steps to obtain from the CMA the return of the bas-relief and with what outcome.” Finally, Corrado and colleagues wish to know “what is the state of progress of the proceedings aimed at facilitating the return of the valuable artistic artifact to Italy, and whether they do not consider that they would like to take action, including through the Committee for the Recovery and Restitution of Cultural Heritage, so that new impetus is given to diplomatic activity in order to achieve the expected result as soon as possible.”

Pictured: Benedetto Buglioni, Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and John Gualbert (c. 1510-1520; glazed and glazed polychrome terracotta, 174 x 96 x 27 cm; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art)

Cleveland Museum of Art has Buglioni work stolen from Italy. M5S parliamentarians call for its return

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