Art: Off the Shelf

The big art news last week in Rome had to do with sculpture (see above), but Romans had a second story that interested them almost as much: the case of the missing Raphael.

The painting in question was a Madonna miniature done by Raphael in 1501, when he was just 18. Its owner, Professor Tullio Gramantieri, had refused as much as $75,000 for it. Then, 2½ years ago, it was stolen from the professor’s apartment. Until last week, Rome’s police were stymied.

A tip from a Rome art dealer put them on the track. The dealer had been visited by a distinguished-looking stranger who said he had a miniature by Raphael which he would sell for only 2,000,000 lire ($3,200). Suspicious of the low price, the dealer put off the caller and called in the police. They set up a street-corner rendezvous, nabbed the distinguished-looking stranger.

He had the Raphael they were looking for, right enough, but he was not exactly a stranger. The police identified him as Franco Bertucci, a salesman and onetime plainclothesman on Rome’s own police force. The rest of the story, as the police told it: Bertucci had once consulted Professor Gramantieri about another miniature (which turned out to be a fake). In the course of the consultation, kindly Professor Gramantieri had hauled out his Raphael from its hiding place in the bookcase. On a return visit during the professor’s absence, the police were convinced, Bertucci had known just where to look.

At week’s end, the former plainclothesman was awaiting trial in Rome’s Queen of Heaven jail; Professor Gramantieri, in view of all the publicity, was thinking about a safer place for his little Raphael.