Lost Art Treasures!

|THE DEN|

The "Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence"

The "Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence" also known as “The Adoration,” was created in 1609 by the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It shows the birth of Christ, with the infant Jesus lying on a haystack. Caravaggio illustrates a gathering of many saints and shepherds, who have assembled to worship the newborn Christ-child.

The setting is under the roof of the stable in Bethlehem. The most striking feature of the painting is its subtlety. The side walls merge smoothly into brownish darkness. The painting was stolen on October 18,1969, when it was in a chapel in Palermo, in Sicily, Italy and since then it is the subject of one of the most mysterious art robberies ever.

Speculation; The local Sicilian mafia is believed to have carried out the robbery. It is also rumored that the painting is hidden outside or that it was destroyed during the robbery or during the 1980 earthquake.

Poppy Flowers

Painted by Vincent Van Gogh, Poppy Flowers, also known as Vase and Flowers, depicts yellow and red poppy flowers on a dark background and is small in size, measuring only 65 x 54 centimeters. Van Gogh is believed to have painted this work three years before his suicide and was created out of Van Gogh's admiration for Adolphe Monticelli.

The colors are bold, and the background is picked out with dramatic, impulsive brush strokes. Like most of his works, this painting is oil on canvas. The location of the painting is unknown after its theft in 2010 from the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum, Egypt.

Although, the theft in 2010 was not the first time the painting had been snatched; it was stolen from the same museum in June 1977 but was found ten years later in Kuwait. To this day, the painting's whereabouts are a mystery without any lead.

Portrait of a Young Man

The portrait of a young man confiscated by the Nazis in Poland was created by Raphael around 1513. It is one of the most important paintings missing since World War II. It is generally considered to be a self-portrait of Raphael, as the facial features resemble those of his self-portrait in his fresco 'The School of Athens'.

The portrait shows a confident and well-dressed young man, depicted in the early Mannerist style. It represents the higher classes that were spreading through Italy in the early 1500s. After the rescue, the portrait was sent to Berlin and then to Dresden to the Führer's collection in Linz.

The painting was last seen in Kraków when it was placed on top of Wawel Castle in 1945. It disappeared along with 843 other artifacts when its owner Frank was arrested by American troops for war crimes. Its current whereabouts are still unknown. However, in 2012, a false report of the painting's rediscovery was published which was soon revealed to be a hoax.

The Concert

Painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1664, The Concert features an atmospheric scene of a man and two women playing music. It was part of a major art heist that took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. In March of 1990, a group of thieves disguised as Boston police officers entered the museum and claimed they were answering a call.

The thieves stole a total of 13 paintings including ‘The Concert’. The Concert is a classic example of a Vermeer. The 28.5- by-25.5-inch canvas depicts a sitting room with three figures situated in a triangle at the center-right.

The woman on the left concentrates on playing her harpsichord, the woman on the right is poised to break out in song, and the man at the center has his back to the viewer while he plays the lute. The estimated value of the painting is $200 million which makes it the most valuable and unrecovered work of art in the world.

Reading Girl in White and Yellow

The Girl Reading in White and Yellow by French artist Henri Matisse was one of seven works stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. Painted in 1919, the painting shows a woman reading a book deep in thought, seated next to a table decorated with flowers. The theft of this work of art and the others in the robbery was one of the largest in the Netherlands in over a decade.

The thieves broke into the museum through an emergency exit and stole several works before fleeing within two minutes. The mother of one of the thieves also claims that after her son's arrest, she was scared and buried the stolen artwork in an abandoned house and cemetery in the town of Carcaliu.

She later dug up the paintings and burned them on her stove. After a search of the stove, traces of pigment were found, but there was not enough hard evidence to prove her claim. The painting is still listed as missing, and the investigation continues.