Stolen $1.3M Marc Chagall Painting at Home of Soccer Star Roberto Bottega
A Marc Chagall painting stolen more than 10 years ago was discovered in the home of former Italian soccer star Roberto Bottega.
Italy’s art-theft police said Monday that “Le Nu au Bouquet,” painted in 1920 by the renowned Jewish artist and reportedly worth $1.3 million, was found in the Turin home of Bottega, formerly of the city’s Juventus squad.
Authorities said Bottega had bought the painting in good faith from a gallery in Bologna in 2003. They said he was unaware that it had been stolen a year earlier from a U.S. yacht anchored for repairs at the northern Italian port of Savona.
The thieves had replaced the original painting on the yacht with a copy and, according to media reports, had tricked the Chagall Foundation into providing a new authentication for the stolen artwork.
Italian media said three people, including the gallery owner from Bologna and two Romanians who had worked on the yacht in 2002, were under investigation.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
