The artworks now coming back to Czechia include two smaller statues of Saint Vitus and Saint Denis, as well as a larger statue of Christ Salvator Mundi. The statue of the Christ had been owned for several years by Laurence Gillery, who runs an antiques shop in Paris’s Montmartre district.
She bought it four years ago from a German antiques dealer for around CZK 50,000 (approximately € 2,000) and says she had no reason to suspect anything was wrong, since the purchase appeared entirely legitimate.
“For three years I didn’t offer it for sale; I displayed it in my shop. Then I posted a photo of the statue on my website. After that, the police contacted me saying it appeared the statue had been stolen in the Czech Republic. I regret it. I liked the statue very much; it is very beautiful.”
The statue of Christ Salvator Mundi originally came from the Church of Saint Gotthard in the village of Krupá. The other two statues, of Saint Vitus and Saint Denis, were stolen from the Church of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Abertamy in north-western Czechia.
All three statues were taken in 1992, a period marked by widespread thefts from churches across the country, says Vladimír Kelnar of the Prague Archbishopric.
“I am not exaggerating when I speak of losses comparable to those of the Hussite period. The Thirty Years’ War also caused damage, but it was regional. You practically cannot find a church from which at least one item did not disappear after 1990.”
According to criminal police officer Jan Menger, most of the perpetrators behind these thefts have never been identified. He says police at the time were unprepared for this new type of crime, and the sheer number of cases made proper investigation extremely difficult.
On the French side, the case was handled by police officer Nathalie Chanvallon. She says the investigation began after alerts were sent through Interpol.
“We were told that three statues were being offered for sale on the Proantic website, which brings together antiques dealers. Two sellers were involved, and after checking the case it became clear they had acquired the statues in good faith and had the right to keep them. I therefore asked whether they would agree to return the statues voluntarily and free of charge to Czechia and the respective churches.”
The statues are listed in a special Czech police database, which tracks stolen works of art and currently contains around 20,000 items. Czech investigators are still searching in France for other missing objects, including a Gothic cross that was auctioned less than a year ago for the equivalent of about CZK one million.
