France returns stolen 17th-century marble angels to Italy

A British art collector who bought a pair of 17th-century marble angels from a Neapolitan antique shop two decades ago has returned the winged “putti” to Italy’s art police after learning that they had been stolen from a church.

Italy’s carabinieri art police said the unnamed collector had tried to resell the angels at an antique shop in Avignon, France, before his planned move from France to Portugal when French art police flagged them as possible stolen goods.

Italy’s art police said Tuesday that the angels, decorated with a strategically placed vine of leaves and fruit, had been stolen from the St. Sebastian church in Guardia Sanframondi, northeast of Naples, on Dec. 13, 1989. Police said the collector was ignorant of the angels’ origin and offered to return them without any legal fight.

They were formally handed over Tuesday to Italy at a ceremony at the French Embassy.

In a statement, the carabinieri noted that churches in the area had been subjected to numerous thefts after the 1980 Irpinia earthquake levelled huge swaths of southern Italy.

The police noted that another set of angels, similarly reported as stolen in the carabinieri's database, was recently returned to another Guardia Sanframondi church after they were located in a Milan antique shop and recognized by the church pastor.