Italy announces rescue of 3 artworks

Italy is striving for heritage protection at the international level, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini told Xinhua on Friday commenting on the latest recovery of stolen artworks in the country.

Earlier in the day, the Culture Ministry announced that three precious artworks worth a total of over 30 million euros (33 million U.S. dollars) have been rescued from the illegal art traffic and returned to citizens.

Franceschini praised the job done by the local police in charge of protecting cultural assets.

"Endowed with this excellence, Italy is urging the international community to get to work for the protection of cultural heritage in conflict areas," he explained to Xinhua.

The minister stressed his country "must take a guidance role" as concerns cultural heritage protection at the international level.

He also highlighted the fundamental role of the United Nations (UN), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Union (EU) for the safeguard of "cultural assets that are the heritage of humankind."

The three artworks recently recovered in Italy are a sculpted group portraying God Mithra killing the Taurus and two oil paintings of which one attributed to Spanish painting master Pablo Picasso.

The sculpted group was recovered in southern Etruria, an archaeological zone targeted by illegal excavation and traffic of artworks north of Rome, according to a statement from the ministry.

Police found the artwork inside a van transporting some plants and objects covered by tarpaulin, which was being escorted by a car and a motorbike.

Some soil traces on the sculpted group, which was defined by experts of "extraordinary historical and archaeological interest," suggested the artwork was coming from an illegal excavation in the zone.

Local authorities told a press conference on Friday that the van was allegedly bound for Switzerland, where the sculpted group would have been destined to the illegal art business.

The artwork attributed to Picasso, named "Violin e bouteille de bass," was found to belong to a retiree who was trying to sell it on the international market.

The retiree, who used to run a craftsman workshop in Rome in the past, said the painting had been given to him in 1978 as a present by an elderly man who wanted to express gratitude for a received courtesy.

Police rescued the third artwork, an oil painting of the 17th century, from the hands of an art trafficker in Milan, more than 30 years after it was stolen from a private collection in Rome in 1984.

The painting, a view of St. Mark Square in Venice, had been previously listed among the stolen artworks and described as a very interesting work from the artistic and historical point of view.

Earlier this year, Italian authorities said they impounded more than 5,000 ancient artifacts in a seizure that called for attention to the problem of trafficking of illegally obtained art and archaeological treasures. Endit