Following decades of intrigue and months of international negotiations, U.S. officials on Friday seized a piece of valuable Baroque art stolen from its Jewish owners by the Nazis in World War II that found its way from Milan to a local museum in north Florida.
Agents for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized the 473-year-old painting that was on display at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, which had the piece on loan from an Italian museum since March.
The seizure comes four months after museum officials and federal agents said they were informed about the history of the painting’s 20th Century ownership.
The Baroque work, “Christ Carrying the Cross” by Girolamo de’ Romani, who was also known as “Romanino,” was part of a collection of 50 paintings on loan from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy to the Brogan museum since March 2011.
The exhibit was slated to close Sunday.
