On December 30, the Carabinieri confiscated a painting by Rubens at an exhibition in genoa, as part of an investigation into the owners of the work, accused of money laundering and illegal export. According to ‘Art Newspaper’, the canvas has been returned to the show. The investigation into the owners continues, however, as Italian police investigate how they allegedly smuggled the painting out of the country a decade ago in an elaborate plot to increase its market value.
‘The risen Christ appears to his mother’ (ca. 1612-16), a seven-foot-tall painting attributed to Rubens and his workshop, depicting the Virgin kneeling before Christ in a cobalt blue mantle, is back on display along with 18 other works by Rubens at the Doge’s Palace of Genoa in an exhibition inaugurated in October. Is insured for 4 million euros.
The owners purchased the work from the Cambiaso family for €300,000 in 2012. However, just two years later, in 2014, the buyers, along with an accountant and his son, exported the piece to Prague claiming it had been created by an artist. unknown flamenco and that it was only worth 25,000 euros. It is believed that they obtained an export certificate from an accomplice who worked in the office of the superintendent of exports in Pisa. That same office was temporarily closed in 2019 due to «irregularities» in the issuance of other certificates, reported the Italian newspaper ‘Il Corriere della Sera’. The four suspects they allegedly arranged fake sales of the Rubens painting in an attempt to bolster its value.
In 2015, restorers discovered a original representation of the Virgin that the artist covered later. Controversially, the restorers decided to remove the paint from the surface to reveal the original Madonna. “The figure will be the subject of new investigations,” the Carabinieri explained. Doubts have also been raised in recent years as to whether Rubens was really the author of the painting. “No Genoese source or document attests to the reference to Rubens in the painting exhibited in Genoa,” he said. Vittorio Sgarbiart historian and undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Culture, in a statement sent to ‘La Repubblica’.
He alluded to the «uncertain quality of the work” and noted that “art history lived for three hundred years without this unlikely Rubens. I invite those who have carried out the preliminary investigations, which have led to the seizure of the work, to greater prudence and rigor in the evaluations, to avoid embarrassing errors. Criminal responsibility cannot be assumed for a controversial attribution. Anna Orlando, co-curator of the exhibition, told the Italian newspaper that the authenticity of the work “is not subject to discussion.”