Historical mystery at Lotto exhibit

(ANSA) - Macerata, December 11 - An exhibit on Italian painter Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556/7) ongoing in the Marche region through February 11, 2019, highlights the strong bond between the Venice-born Renaissance master and his elective home.
    The exhibit, at Macerata's Palazzo Bonaccorsi as well as eight other sites in the Marche that were close to the painter's heart, also focuses on the mystery surrounding the disappearance of one of Lotto's masterworks to raise awareness on the many artworks that are still missing, curator Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo said.
    Indeed the show ends with an empty frame of the Madonna with Child and Three Angels, painted by Lotto in the 1530s, which was stolen from the municipal palace of Osimo, Ancona, in the night between November 7-8, 1911, the same year as the famous theft of the Mona Lisa.
    Contrary to Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, however, Lotto's painting was never found.
    Prior to the theft, between 1900 and 1911, several museums, including the Uffizi and the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, had offered to buy it.
    Many had noted that security measures in Osimo were inadequate for such an important painting.
    Its frame was subsequently exhibited at the church of Santissima Annunziata, first with a black-and-white photo of the painting, which was replaced in 1999 by a controversial colored picture. The exhibit, promoted by the Marche region and the city of Macerata, includes multimedia support for a closer look on the great masterpieces on display and critics' opinions.
    Another painting on display, a masterwork on San Girolamo, is controversial.
    Bought by the Musei Civici in Bassano del Grappa, the artwork was believed by a number of art critics, including Vittorio Sgarbi, not to have been painted by Lotto and was kept in the museum's deposit for a long time.
    In 2018, it was retrieved and examined with scientific analysis showing it was compatible with Lotto's technique.
    Dal Pozzolo has reopened discussion on this masterwork's paternity with the show, recognizing the high quality of the painting and its coherence with the painter's artistic phase in Loreto.
    Indeed the curator believes it could be a "free copy" from an incision by Durer, an artist Lotto loved since his youth, an element that could prove that the Venetian artist is the painter behind the masterwork.
    Another interesting feature of the show is the Madonna with Child by Carlo Crivelli, owned by the Museum of Macerata, on display near Lotto's Madonna, on loan from Venice's Correr Museum, which was probably painted in the Marche between 1532 and 1534.
    It is a silent dialogue between two Venetians who left their native city to live in the Marche, considered by Lotto as "an oasis of creative freedom".