{"id":22288,"date":"2018-11-18T15:22:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T15:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2018-11-18T15:22:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T15:22:25","slug":"saint-mark-mosaic-missing-for-decades-returns-to-cyprus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22288","title":{"rendered":"Saint Mark mosaic, missing for decades, returns to Cyprus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the last missing pieces of Byzantine art stolen from Cyprus<\/a> in the 1970s has been handed back to the country by a renowned Dutch art investigator.<\/p>\n

Arthur Brand on Friday said he handed back the sixth century depiction of Saint Mark during a private ceremony at the Cypriot embassy in The Hague<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Brand, dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the art world” because of his exploits to recover stolen works, the handover was a highpoint in his life-long interest in the Byzantine saint, and the result of a nearly two-year chase across Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

“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,” said the art<\/a> sleuth.<\/p>\n

Brand showed the mosaic to\u00a0the AFP news agency\u00a0<\/span>hours before it was handed back.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cypriot embassy and Church of Cyprus declined AFP’s request for comment when asked about the mosaic, while the Cypriot department of antiquities did not respond to phone calls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two-year chase<\/h2>\n

After getting a tip from a prominent London-based art dealer, Brand travelled to Monaco<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

Through a series of intermediaries – including several in the underground world – Brand finally traced the missing mosaic to an apartment in the upscale city-state.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It was in the possession of a British family, who bought the mosaic in good faith more than four decades ago,” Brand told AFP.<\/span><\/p>\n

“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,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

A week ago, Brand – who was working with the Church of Cyprus – returned to Monaco to collect the treasure, believed to be worth five to 10m euros ($5.7-$11m)<\/span><\/p>\n

“It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” the detective said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, Brand won world fame after finding two massive bronze statues made by Nazi sculptor Joseph Thorak that are referred to as “Hitler’s Horses”.<\/span><\/p>\n

He again made headlines a year later for helping to recover five stolen masterpieces from a criminal group in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘Immense importance’ \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Religious artifacts, including mosaics, were hewn from the church walls in northern Cyprus following an invasion by Turkish forces in 1974.<\/p>\n

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The artefact is nearly 2,000 years old [Jan Hennop\/AFP]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

They included a set of mosaics taken from the Panayia Kanakaria church, about 105km northeast of Nicosia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many pieces ended up in the underground world of art smuggling and went missing for years, while the Cyprus government and church campaigned ceaselessly to recover them.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The mosaics of Kanakaria are of immense importance in Christian art and world culture,” said Maria Paphiti, a former department head at British auction house, Christie’s.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ensemble “is among a handful of artworks that escaped the menace of Byzantine iconoclasm” in the eighth and ninth century, Paphiti, an art historian and world authority on Byzantine art told AFP.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLast missing pieces\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/h2>\n

Twelve mosaic fragments have been returned so far, notably one depicting the Apostle Andrew, which Paphiti discovered among a collection of artworks in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1989, four fragments depicting the upper part of Christ, two apostles and an archangel were handed back after a high-profile case in the city of Indianapolis in the\u00a0United States<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why do Lebanese couples get married in Cyprus each year?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Most of the mosaic fragments were recovered between 1983 and 2015, Paphiti said, but some pieces are still missing, including the lower part of Christ’s body.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is truly one of the last outstanding pieces to be returned,” said Brand.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It is incredible to think that this piece of art survived for so long. It’s part of the Cypriot peoples’ soul,” he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

St Mark is expected to return to the Mediterranean island within the coming days.<\/span><\/p>\n

German<\/a> police made a major breakthrough in the recovery of stolen Cypriot art in 1997, when they raided the home of convicted Turkish art dealer, Ayden Dikmen, in Munich.<\/p>\n

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded and seized its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup to unite the island with Greece.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the last missing pieces of Byzantine art stolen from Cyprus in the 1970s has been handed back to the country by a renowned Dutch art investigator. Arthur Brand on Friday said he handed back the sixth century depiction of Saint Mark during a private ceremony at the Cypriot embassy in The Hague. For…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}