over a thousand years old visigothic the stone relief was stolen by professional konsttjuvar from Santa Maria de Lara, church in Spain in 2004. Since then, they have searched for the 50-kg heavy boulders, but it was the well-known konstdeckaren Arthur Fire which was able to find them.
– these works of art are priceless. To find them in a garden after having searched for them in eight years is incredible, ” says Arthur Fire, according to AFP.
covered in the garden of a family living north of London, who by his own admission bought them in the belief that they were prydnadsstenar.
“You can imagine how shocked they were when they found out that their trädgårdsprydnader, in fact, was priceless stolen Spanish religious art,” says Arthur Fire.
The first clue in the search for the reliefs had Fire in 2010, when an anonymous british source told him that something suspicious appeared in London. Via an anonymous man, known as Mr X, was able to Fire to track down a French art dealer who transported the reliefs to the Uk.
the thieves probably thought about selling artworks for a few million, but found that it was impossible. Instead sold the reliefs as trädgårdsprydnader for 50 000 pounds each, about 580 000 sek.
Through the French art dealer came konstdeckaren finally in contact with the british family and after 15 years he was able to return the stone relief to the Spanish embassy in London.
They should now be returned to Maria de Lara, church near Burgos in northern Spain.
time Arthur Fire manages to find the missing art. 2018 repossessed he stolen ancient mosaics to Cyprus, and in 2015 he became noticed when he managed to track down two häststatyer in the bronze which the sculptor Josef Thorak, specially made for the Hitler’s chancellery in Berlin.
