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Twice-stolen Old Master goes on show
By Tom Teodorczuk, Evening Standard 08.11.06
Lost and foundling: Guercino's St Francis
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An Italian Old Master painting recently recovered after being stolen for the second time will go on show in London tomorrow.
It is the first occasion that Saint Francis Receiving The Stigmata, painted by 17th century artist Guercino, has gone on show in Britain. It will be displayed at The Foundling Museum, Bloomsbury, until January.
Guercino, real name Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, painted the work in 1633 for the Franciscan church of San Giovanni in Persiceto near Bologna.
However it disappeared at the end of the 18th century and was lost for more than a century until 1895 when it surfaced via an antiques dealer in Campello Montelli, a town in the Piedmont region of Italy.
It remained in a church there until 1973 when it was stolen but was recovered in 1998 by the Italian military police. However, it was badly damaged, without its frame, cut in half and rolled up.
A restoration process began, overseen by art historian and collector Sir Denis Mahon who celebrates his 96th birthday today.
Saint Francis will be displayed alongside materials documenting its loss, rediscovery and restoration as well as drawings representing the saint taken from Sir Denis's Collection at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. British art experts are hugely excited by the painting.
Evening Standard art critic Brian Sewell said: "It's a rediscovery so I have not yet seen it but I look forward to doing so.
"Sir Denis Mahon is the man who re-discovered Guercino in the Thirties. His one-man effort made us look again at paintings by Guercino and there is nobody better to oversee its restoration."
The Foundling Museum is London's first public art gallery as well as being Britain's original home for abandoned children.
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