Italian national police announced on Friday that they found and returned a Renaissance painting to a Brescia-area church after a 60-year disappearance.
Devotional painting "Faith", by Alessandro Bonvicino, commonly known as Il Moretto da Brescia, disappeared from the Church of Santa Maria in Valverde Padernello near Brescia in 1944.
According to police, an acting parish priest allegedly removed the painting from the church.
The Monza division of the Cultural Heritage Unit researched a photographic image of the Bonvincino painting that appeared in a catalog and traced it to an apartment owned by a Brescia businessman.
After a series of rigid checks to confirm authenticity and provenance were performance, police returned the painting to the church.
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