Posted on 10/04/2007 12:46:32 PM PDT by presidio9
Detectives on Thursday recovered a Leonardo da Vinci painting that was stolen from a Scottish castle in a daring daylight raid four years ago.
Officers raided an address in Glasgow and seized "Madonna with the Yarnwinder," Scotland's Dumfries and Galloway police said. Three men from England and one man from Scotland were arrested.
The painting appeared on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list of stolen art and on the Art Loss Register's list of stolen masterpieces, where it was valued at $65 million.
Police said art experts had confirmed the recovered painting was the Leonardo masterpiece, stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland in August 2003.
The lead investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Mickey Dalgleish, said the painting had been tracked down in a combined operation by Scottish police and national crime agencies, with help from the public.
"We are extremely pleased to recover the 'Madonna with the Yarnwinder' painting," he said.
"Madonna with the Yarnwinder" was stolen from the castle while it was on public display. Two thieves posing as tourists overpowered a guide before escaping with the painting.
The oil-on-wood painting, which shows the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus on her lap holding a cross-shaped spindle for yarn, is one of several versions of the same scene painted between 1500 and 1510.
Some scholars have suggested the painting is the work of Leonardo's assistants, but Scottish experts have said that the central figures of the Madonna and child are the artist's own work, and that the overall design is likely to be his.
Drumlanrig Castle, which houses one of the finest private art collections in Britain, also contains masterpieces by Rembrandt and Holbein. The structure, completed in 1691, is one of the most important Renaissance buildings in Scotland and is home to one of Scotland's richest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch.
The painting had been in the Buccleuch family for more than 200 years. Its recovery comes a month after the death at 83 of the ninth Duke of Buccleuch. He was succeeded by his son.
KOOL, DUDE!.......
I’m glad to hear DiCaprio got his painting back.
Lame and lamer.
DiCaprio's painting......
the painting appears to be in remarkable condition considering it’s age. Is it large or small?
“Ugly painting but I am glad they got it back.”
I think it’s amazing. The Jesus is a bit odd, but the Madonna is beautiful, as is the background.
If you read the article, the only people saying that it is DEFINITELY a da Vinci are the owners. Probably the blokes who stole it too -at least until they got caught, that is!
And that hand? It’s a man, baby...
Although I can't say if this is specifically the case here, it is not uncommon for Renaissance painting and sculpture to appear distorted when viewed from other than the intended angle. Many patrons would commission a piece to occupy a specific niche in a residence, church, public building, etc. and the artist would develop the piece to be viewed from a certain walkway, staircase or other very specific vantage point. Consequently, foreshortening or other optical tricks were frequently employed to actually enhance the realism from a select position, but the pieces will actually appear somewhat distorted when viewed straight on in a photo or out of their original situ.
Have you ever actually seen a DiVinci painting? I'm not being a smast@ss its an honest question.
I've only seen one, the Lady w/ the Ermine, its in the National Gallery in DC and I must say that it blew me away. No other painting I've ever seen compares to it. The reproductions in books do it no justice.
I kept waiting for the figure in the painting to move.
That’s a terrible painting. Mary’s head is huge and the baby looks like an imp.
You must not get to museums much. Da Vinci wasn’t even the third best painter of his era.
BTW, if its the “so-lifelike-it’s-creeping-me-out” quality that you’re looking for in a painting, I recommend John Singer Sargent.
Never had the opportunity. I look at art from the perspective of the amount of talent it took to create. The shading and depth of the Masters, like Rembrandt, as compared to Van Gogh, who to me is an overpriced slop artist. Even Degas is better. Get up close to “Sunday Afternoon,” at the Art Institute of Chicago, and you can see the hundreds of thousands of pure color dots. That’s talent. The poor child in this one looks like a squirrel with an overbite.
Leni
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