A 17th-century painting by French painter Nicolas Poussin was found in Italy and made 77 years later. The painting was stolen by the Nazis during the occupation of France during World War II. Italian police reported this today.
The French painter’s oil painting “Loth avec ses deux Filles lui Servant à boire” was stolen while German soldiers occupied the home of their rightful owners in Poitiers (central-western France). Its owners have been searching for the job since 1946 and it is also listed in the “Handbook of Looted Goods in France during WWII”.
The heirs of the rightful owners, a 98-year-old Swiss woman and a 65-year-old American, filed a complaint, leading to an investigation by a specialized unit of the Italian gendarmerie (gendarmerie). The stolen board cannot be completely tracked. What is certain is that the painting was bought by an Italian antiques dealer in France in 2017, and sold to another Italian antiques dealer.
The latter exhibited the painting in the Netherlands, where the missing painting was identified by a Dutch art expert living in Italy. Then the Carabinieri went to search for the painting and finally found it in the home of an antiques dealer near Padua, in northeastern Italy.
The work was confiscated and returned to its legal owners. Italian police did not provide details on when or where the painting was returned.
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) is one of the greatest masters of classical French painting. He worked in Italy and for a time in France for the French King Louis XIII. His classic and baroque works are world famous.
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