Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£10m Giotto ‘was spirited out of Italy’
ITALY is demanding back a £10million Giotto painting “spirited away” to the UK, a court heard.
When Kathleen Simonis paid £3,500 in 1990 for the Madonna and Child, dated 1297, it was thought to be an 1800s imitation.
But restoration showed it was by the Florentine master who died in 1337.
Italy’s culture ministry told the High Court Ms Simonis moved it, without telling them, to London in 2007 after an export licence ran out.
Their lawyer said: “Ms Simonis spirited the painting out of Italy.”
But her QC said EU law gave her the right to move it between member states.
The court heard a later UK bid to move the work out of the EU was refused. The hearing continues. William, on the last day of his historic tour of the region, also went to the most sacred site accessible to Jews – the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Wearing a kippah skull cap, he placed a written prayer on a folded piece of paper into a crack in the wall, held his right hand against the stone and spent around a minute in quiet contemplation.
A palace source said: “William’s visit to the Middle East has not only made history, it has created memories and relationships that will last a lifetime.”
Alice was the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother. After marrying, she used the title Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark.
She died at Buckingham Palace in 1969 aged 84 and asked to be buried in Jerusalem next to her aunt Elizabeth.
Alice’s war heroics led in 1993 to her being declared Righteous Among the Nations the top honour Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial bestows on non-jews.