Paintings by Rosai, De Chirico and Guttuso stolen from Rai headquarters. Are they isolated cases?

There is a hunt in the Rai headquarters in Viale Mazzini for thieves who allegedly stole important twentieth-century paintings (works by Ottone Rosai, Giorgio De Chirico and Renato Guttuso are mentioned) and replaced them with worthless reproductions. The first case goes all the way back to the 1960s, when a Rosai painting, Architecture, was stolen, but the discovery came a few months ago when the reproduction fell to the ground and those who picked it up realized it was a fake. Despite so much time having passed, the carabinieri were able to trace it back to the perpetrator of the theft, a confessed offender (although he will not go to trial because the crime has since fallen under the statute of limitations). The work has already been recovered by carabinieri.

The Carabineers, however, far from considering the case closed, wondered whether the one concerning the Rosai painting was an isolated incident, and at least two other cases have emerged, involving a painting by De Chirico(Life in the Fields) and one by Guttuso(The Sunday of Good People), both of which were replaced with fakes.

In the wake of the case, Senator Margherita Corrado (Mixed Group), a member of the Culture Commission, has in fact announced a question that will be submitted soon. “Franceschini,” says the senator, “tell the Italians if there are inventory registers and catalog cards of the state works of art that adorn government and representative buildings in Italy and outside; if they do not exist, immediately arrange for their creation, giving work, under the supervision of museum directors, to the many cultural heritage professionals that the country trains and then deny them opportunities other than contracts for receptionists and surveillance.”

The senator reports that the affair of the paintings stolen from the RAI headquarters in Viale Mazzini is being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but not only that: a technical-scientific committee has also been appointed, which would include some directors of autonomous museums. In the question, Corrado will ask Franceschini to give “an account of the inventorying and cataloging, if any, of the thousands of publicly owned artistic artifacts to date in representative buildings scattered throughout the country and abroad (government buildings, ministries, embassies, IICs, etc.).” The doubt stems from the fact that back in February 2020 Corrado officially requested information on the existence, maintenance and updating of the lists of those works of art from the General Directorates Museums, Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape (ABAP) and Education and Research. “I also asked,” Corrado adds, “with a further note to the DG ABAP alone, for news of the lists of works returned to the department, which had given them on loan, after the decommissioning of the great Italian ocean liners that plied the oceans in the 1950s-70s. To date, no response.”

Finally, Corrado does not spare an attack on the minister of culture: “The omertous demeanor of Franceschini’s ministry towards the citizens and their representatives in Parliament exposes Italians to the constant risk of being defrauded of important pieces of public heritage, without anyone being aware of it. If sovereignty belongs to the people, in fact, they also own the assets whose constitutional interest is expressly declared in Article 9 of the Charter. These assets do not belong to the Ministry but are guarded and managed by it in the name and on behalf of the people. Of this simple truth, too often replaced, in the rooms of the Roman College, by the belief that we can dispose at will of everyone’s property, memory must absolutely be made and respect demanded.”

Paintings by Rosai, De Chirico and Guttuso stolen from Rai headquarters. Are they isolated cases?

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