“Report” returns to the attack on the stolen painting and asphalts Vittorio Sgarbi: the undersecretary rejects the accusations
The case of the stolen painting is reopened. Reportsthe investigative program on Rai3in yesterday's episode brought to the fore the investigation signed with the Everyday occurrence on Vittorio Sgarbi and the framework of Rutilio Manetti stolen from the castle of Buriasco in 2013. The investigation reveals that Sgarbi's work, exhibited in Lucca in December 2021 and the stolen one, delivered to the restorer Gianfranco Mingardi in 2013, they would be the same work. In fact, from a careful analysis, a fragment found at Buriasco castlewhich remained stuck in the frame after the theft, would demonstrate that the stolen painting and the restored one coincide.
The only visible difference with the stolen work is one torch top left, present in Sgarbi's work. The scan, viewed by experts of the highest level, would demonstrate – according to Report – that it would have been added at a later time, as the area is free of the cracks typical of an old painting. It will now be up to them carabinieri of the Protection unitwho have been investigating the matter for weeks, find and view the work to clarify irrefutably whether or not an undersecretary of culture has a stolen work of art in his collection.
Sgarbi's reply
In the meantime, however, Sgarbi, at the art magazine “ArtsLife“ he categorically denied any type of theft: “The maniacal exercise against me is on photographs and on unlikely testimonies. The story is much simpler: in a seventeenth-century building near Viterbothe Maidalchina, purchased by my mother in 2000, among hundreds of bricks, fixtures and original period doors, a canvas with some figures emerges, reused in a cavity in the staircase. The subject is an episode from the life of Saint Peter which was documented in an archive register in 1649. I have no difficulty recognizing the author in Rutilio Manetti, a Sienese painter who was also active in Florence and Rome. A friend who had come on several occasions assisted in the discovery and recovery.”
“It's with him – continues Vittorio – that we transport the work to Ferrarawhere it will remain in storage until the day a driver, who he remembers well, with other works, will take it to studio of the restorer Gianfranco Mingardi in Brescia. Mingardi had long deadlines and sometimes delayed and held back his works for many years. When, after a few years, the painting returned, I, as had already happened, showed myself dissatisfied with the intervention and entrusted it to another restorer”.
“After the restoration was completed, the work was exhibited at the exhibition”The painters of light” in Lucca, and seen by thousands of people including illustrious critics who observed neither anomalies nor additions nor remakes and even less did they think they were looking at a photographic reproduction.”
The story continues: “A certain Samuelowner of a photographic laboratory in Correggio, was called by me to clean up some surfaces with insulating sheaths during Covid, and then entrusted with the reproduction of the “Birth of Venus” for the Botticelli exhibition at the Mart in Rovereto. The outcome was disastrous and criticized by the museum's curators who were able to measure its inadequacy: Denis Isaia and Beatrice Avanzi. The result was unequal when compared to the leader in the field, Adam Lowe's Factum arte company, based in Madrid, which I recommend for its quality and commitment. Hence comes the inexplicable hatred towards me of the young Samuele who, having always worked despite his modest quality, tried and obtained an interview to say senseless and slanderous things. Among these is the posthumous worry of having kept a stolen work in the laboratorywhich was instead the painting owned by mevery different from the nineteenth-century copy that I had seen years earlier in the castle of Buriasco.
Sgarbi declares that “the connection to the theft of the one with the false and defamatory statements of people animated by a spirit of revenge leads to the illogical reconstructions of journalists, obsessed with the case that does not exist. I will explain absolutely simple data. Just as paintings are judged in their physicality, on the originals, so it is possible proceed with analysis to ascertain its authenticity and any more recent interventions. It's a simple thing, which I will provide spontaneously, providing the results of the research which has already partly led the most important Italian diagnostic company, the Editech by Maurizio Saracini. And which I will hand over, upon request, to the competent authorities.”
“For what reason should a public service broadcast be”Reports” (and it is not, given that it now seems dedicated to delegitimizing representatives of the Government and the political majority that supports it), paid by the citizens, must act as a support and support for “Il Fatto”, a biased, unreliable newspaper populated by journalists resentful and frustrated, who he carries out propaganda for the 5 Stars? They call it, incorrectly, “investigative journalism”, but it is only the continuation of the political struggle through deception and lies. I have to defend myself from an absurd accusation”, concludes the Undersecretary for Culture bitterly.
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