Stolen Artwork Recovered

Also known as The Kiss of Judas, the painting entitled The Taking of Christ, a canvas by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Milan, September 29, 1571¿Porto Ércole, July 18, 1611), which was stolen two years ago in Odessa (Ukraine), has been recovered by police in Berlin. The District Attorney office in Frankfurt and the Federal Department of Criminal Investigation of Germany (BKA) informed of the apprehension of four delinquents as these were allegedly completing the sale of the painting. The suspects ¿ three Ukrainians and one Russian ¿ had arranged last Friday a meeting in Berlin with the potential buyers. One of the detainees has already confirmed his participation in the Odessa theft. At the time of the robbery in 2008, the painting represented a crown jewel of the collection of the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art. In the Nineteenth Century, the artwork was bought by the Russian Ambassador to France, Alexander Bazilevski, who in 1870 offered it as a present to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, it was given to the School of Art of Odessa. In 1920, after the Bolshevik Revolution, it was given to the City Museum of Antiques and Art ¿ now the National Art Museum of Ukraine. Previously regarded as a copy of the version exhibited at the National Gallery in Dublin, in 1950 Muscovite art critic, Ksenia Malitskaïa, demonstrated that the painting in Odessa was in reality painted by Caravaggio himself.