TheCarabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage has returned to the Capodimonte Museum and Real Bosco theImmaculate Conception, a valuable 18th-century painting attributed to the school of Francesco Solimena, the most representative painter of early 18th-century Naples. The work had been stolen in 1978 from the Church of San Gennaro inside the Real Bosco and has now returned to Capodimonte, where it will be on public display from today on the second floor of the Reggia, in Room 63. After the already planned restoration, the painting will return to its original location.
The redelivery ceremony was attended by Giovanni Conzo, assistant prosecutor at the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office; Colonel Paolo Befera, commander of the Operational Department of the TPC Command; Cinzia Celentano of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the City of Naples - Theft Office; Msgr. Francesco Beneduce, Auxiliary Bishop of Naples; and Vincenzo Stanziola, curator of 18th-century paintings and sculptures at the museum.
TheImmaculate Conception, from the sacristy of the church of San Gennaro in Capodimonte, has the typical characteristics of the Solimenesque school, characterized by a strong plasticism accentuated by a soft chiaroscuro that shapes the forms. The work is presumably datable to the 1840s, the same years as Ferdinando Sanfelice’s completion of the building.
The investigation, coordinated by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, was conducted by the Antiques Section of the TPC Operational Department, which tracked down the work during checks aimed at the supervision and enforcement of regulations on the circulation of artistic and antiquarian goods in commercial activities in the sector. In December 2024, the painting was located while it was for sale in the exterior window of an antiquarian shop in Rome’s historic center. The recovery was the result of a thorough investigation based on a comparison of stolen art catalogs and consultation of the TPC Command’s Illicitly Misappropriated Cultural Property Database, the largest database in the world, with more than 6 million cultural properties surveyed.
“Funds have also arrived to complete the restoration of the Church of San Gennaro,” announced Director of the Capodimonte Museum and Real Bosco Eike Schmidt, opening the rededication ceremony in the ballroom. “It was important in the meantime that the work could be seen immediately by visitors on Free Sunday and Republic Day.”
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| Immaculate Conception from the school of Francesco Solimena, stolen in 1978, returns to Capodimonte |
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