Four Antonello da Messina works stolen in Renaissance painter's hometown

MILAN, Aug 16 - Four artworks by 15th century painter Antonello da Messina have been stolen overnight from the Museo Regionale di Messina, Italian media reported citing a statement from the museum's directorship.

The theft deprives Messina of parts of the only surviving work by the Renaissance painter to have remained in his native city, as well as a small painting acquired by the Sicilian Region two decades ago.

A museum official reached by Reuters said they could not provide any information.

The thieves entered the museum on the night of August 15, a national holiday in Italy and the peak of the summer season, media said.

They took three of the remaining five panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio.

Originally comprising six panels and destined for a local monastery known as Monastero San Gregorio, which was destroyed by Messina's 1908 earthquake, the altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter to have never left his hometown.

The thieves took a fourth artwork from a secure display case: a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and the Christ on the other.

The work was part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold by Christie's to the Sicilian Region in 2003, the year it was attributed to Antonello da Messina.

The theft took place after Italian police on Friday recovered three paintings by French masters Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were stolen from a museum near the northern city of Parma in March.

Born around 1430, Antonello da Messina trained in Naples where he studied the works of Provençal and Flemish artists, whose influence is apparent in his works.

He returned to Messina in 1457, where he worked until 1474. REUTERS