Latest piece from stolen Kanakaria mosaics back in Cyprus

A stolen mosaic from the Kanakaria church of the Virgin Mary in Lythrangomi in the north, depicting Saint Mark was returned to Cyprus on Sunday, CNA reported.

Detail of the St. Mark Mosaic from the Panayia Kanakaria church
[Credit: Cyprus Mail]

The 6th century mosaic was handed over to the Cypriot embassy on Friday in the Hague by a Dutch detective dealing with the stolen art and was brought back to Cyprus by a delegation from the Church of Cyprus and the antiquities department.

Transport, Communications and Works Minister Vassiliki Anastasiadou, confirmed the repatriation of the mosaic to CNA saying it was made possible through the concerted efforts of the Church and the state.

The Dutch detective, Arthur Brand, aka the Indiana Jones of the art world’ told the French News Agency AFP the handover was a high point in his life-long interest in the Byzantine saint and the result of a nearly two-year chase across Europe.

“This is a very special piece that’s more than 1,600 years old. It’s one of the last and most beautiful examples of art from the early Byzantine era,” he said.

Brand attempted to locate the piece, said to be worth five to 10 million euros, after a tip-off and had travelled to Monaco in August where he found it.

“It was in the possession of a British family, who bought the mosaic in good faith more than four decades ago,” Brand told AFP.

“They were horrified when they found out that it was in fact a priceless art treasure, looted from the Kanakaria Church after the Turkish invasion,” Brand said.

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand poses with the missing mosaic of St Mark, a rare piece of stolen Byzantine
art from Cyprus, in a hotel room in The Hague on November 17, 2018. Brand said he handed back
the artwork to Cypriot authorities on the same day [Credit: Jan Hennop/AFP]

AFP said the family agreed to return it “to the people of Cyprus” in return for a small fee to cover restoration and storage costs, he added.

“It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” the detective said.

The mosaics and other treasures from the church were stolen circa 1976. No news about the mosaics surfaced until 1988 when it emerged that four of them were in the possession of an American art dealer named Peg Goldberg. Goldberg had secured them the same year for just over $1 million from Aydin

Dikmen through a Dutch art dealer. The American art dealer then tried to sell them on, but the Cyprus church learned of the deal and stepped in, requesting that Goldberg return the mosaics. She refused though the church had offered to reimburse her.

A long legal battle ensued and in 1991 the four mosaics were brought back to Cyprus. Thousands of people turned out to greet their arrival at Larnaca airport. The mosaics are housed at the Byzantine museum at the archbishopric in Nicosia.

Dikmen remained on the loose for another six years but in 1997 the German authorities and Interpol managed to find and seize in his Munich apartments 260 icons, frescoes, mosaics and manuscripts from Cyprus. In 2013, after 16 years of litigation 173 ecclesiastical treasures from 50 looted churches were repatriated. Among those were another four fragments of other pieces of Kanakaria mosaics: a medallion depicting St Thomas, the hand of the Virgin, the right hand of the Archangel and a fragment of the decorative band.

Twelve Kanakaria pieces – the major ones – have been returned so far but some  are still missing.

Source: Cyprus Mail [November 18, 2018]

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