Thieves have stolen almost 50 pieces of gold jewelry by the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni worth 1.2 million euros (US$1.31 million) in a targeted hit on an exhibition in northern Italy, curators said on Saturday.
A “highly specialized gang” on Wednesday night made off with almost the entire collection of rings, bracelets, pendants and sculptures by Mastroianni, considered one of Italy’s greatest contemporary sculptors, on display at the Vittoriale degli Italiani estate on Lake Garda.
Only one of the 49 items in the collection was recovered elsewhere on the estate, the Vittoriale said in a statement after a news conference on the theft.
Photo: Dino Capodiferro / Il Vittoriale degli Italiani / AFP
“These exceptional artifacts, true ‘wearable sculptures,’ represent the most important testimony of the master’s gold production,” Center for Studies of the Works of Umberto Mastroianni president Lorenzo Zichichi said.
If the pieces are not recovered, the theft — almost the entire collection of Mastroianni’s gold, which belonged to his relatives — would represent an “inestimable loss,” Zichichi said.
The exhibition, entitled “Like a warm and fluid gold. The golds of Umberto Mastroianni,” opened in December last year at the Museo d’Annunzio Segreto and was due to close on Friday.
The works were designed and forged by Mastroianni — also known for his huge monuments — from the 1950s until his death in 1998.
“Of the 49 works subject to the theft ... only one, entitled Man/Woman, was later found inside the complex,” the Vittoriale said, without providing further details.
Vittoriale director Giordano Bruno Guerri said he could not go into details of the robbery, which was under investigation by police and art specialists.
“But we can say that our alarm systems are very extensive and already of the highest level. We were evidently hit by a highly specialized gang,” Guerri said.
Other jewels next to the Mastroianni pieces were “not even touched,” he added.
Mastroianni’s works include monuments in several Italian towns honoring the World War II resistance movement.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home