Caravaggio - Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence 1609
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Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence 1609
268x197cm oil/canvas
Oratorio di San Lorenzo, Palermo, Italy, Stolen
The image is only being used for informational and educational purposes
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
It was stolen on October 18, 1969 from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily.
The painting, which hung above the altar, was large, measuring almost six square metres (actual size 268 cm x 197 cm). Probably because of its size, it was removed from its frame by the thief or thieves (two suspected) before being taken out of the church. After it was stolen, the Oratory was pillaged of other art, along with choir stalls of carved and gilded wood and benches inlaid with precious woods and mother of pearl.
The Nativity is one of the most famous unrecovered stolen works of art; its theft is on the FBI's top ten list of art crimes. The value, if the work was ever sold, is estimated to be $20 million; though resale value on the black market, especially for an infamous work of art, is nowhere near the actual value. On the black market, stolen art fetches perhaps a tenth of its estimated value if it can even be sold at all.