Cattura di Cristo (c.1602)

Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Cattura di Cristo (Taking of Christ)
c.1602
Oil on canvas, 133 x 171 cm
Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Odessa

Stolen in July 2008, it was recovered -badly damaged- in 2010 by German police in Berlin.

The “Judas Kiss” disappeared from Odessa at night and in the fog. The thieves had hit him hard: cut out of the frame with a knife and folded into a small package. Sergy G. had nothing to do with any of this. But it came into play two years later, when the painting attributed to Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) resurfaced in Berlin. When the painting was spectacularly freed in an action by the Federal Criminal Police Office and the elite unit GSG 9, the handcuffs clicked for the 35-year-old entrepreneur as well. He has been in court since Tuesday for attempted receiving stolen goods.

Sergy G. comes from Ukraine and has lived in Berlin for 17 years. He is said to have provided an apartment and his car as a “local expert for the other gang members”. But G. wants nothing to do with the criminals. He had been approached by an acquaintance. “Out of courtesy” he had helped. Later, he suspected, that it was probably a painting. “I had no idea of the value,” said the head of a logistics company. He had also not thought of profit.

It was first 50 million dollars, then 45, 17 and then in June in Berlin another 10 million dollars that the art thieves wanted to collect for the painting. However, they had come across an undercover investigator. They also had no idea that experts had long been discussing the original and copy. It is not the original created in 1602, but a copy made a few years later, said an expert in the trial. The real “Judas kiss”, also known as “The Capture of Christ”, was discovered in 1990 in a Jesuit monastery and is located in Dublin. “The picture in Odessa is a good copy, not painted by Caravaggio.”

Whether the painting is worth its 100 million US dollars, as they say in Odessa, or whether it is a copy for which a maximum of 100,000 euros can be estimated – it was definitely a great Ukrainian-German search success. When the “Judas Kiss” was to be sold, four men were arrested in a parking lot. At the end of August, the work, which had been made transportable by restorers, was returned to the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Anatoly Mogilev by Justice Senator Gisela von der Aue (SPD). The verdict for G. will be announced on Tuesday. K.G. (Tagesspiegel, 09.11.2010)

Compare:

Caravaggio (1571-1610)
Cattura di Cristo
1602
National Gallery of IrelandDublin