‘Indiana Jones of art’ finds priceless mosaic
ONE of the last missing pieces of Byzantine art stolen from Cyprus during the Turkish invasion in the Seventies was handed back this week by a Dutch art investigator, who found that a British family had unwittingly taken possession of it.
For Arthur Brand – dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the art world” thanks to his exploits to recover stolen works – the handover was the result of a two-year hunt across Europe. The artefact is valued at €5-10 million (£4-9 million).
“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,” Mr Brand told AFP.
He said he returned the mosaic, a depiction of St Mark, during a private ceremony on Friday at the Cypriot embassy in The Hague.
Through a series of intermediaries, Mr Brand finally traced the missing mosaic to an apartment in Monaco.
“It was in the possession of a British family, who bought the mosaic in good faith more than four decades ago,” Mr Brand said. “They were horrified when they found out that it was, in fact, a priceless art treasure.”
The mosaic was one of a set from Panayia Kanakaria church, about 65 miles northeast of Nicosia, looted during the Turkish invasion. 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.
In 2015, Mr Brand made headlines after tracking down two massive bronze statues made by Josef Thorak, Hitler’s favourite sculptor. A year later, he helped to recover five stolen masterpieces from a criminal group in Ukraine.