Italy’s undersecretary for culture, the art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, is under investigation for laundering stolen art over suspicions that a 17th-century painting in his possession is stolen property. The Capture of Saint Peter by Rutilio di Lorenzo Manetti, which is reportedly worth around €200,000 ($220,000), was confiscated for analysis on Friday by Italian authorities. There have several been calls for Sgarbi’s resignation among the Italian opposition.

The investigation was sparked by an exposé published in Il Fatto Quotidiano and an investigative series broadcast by RAI in December. Journalists found that a painting Sgarbi leant to an exhibition in Lucca in 2022 was suspiciously similar to The Capture of Saint Peter, which had been reported missing from Buriasco castle in Piedmont since 2013. Margherita Buzio, the castle’s owner, said the canvas had been cut from its frame. The RAI report claims that a friend of Sgarbi’s visited the castle just weeks before this incident because they were interested in acquiring the work.

As Sgarbi has pointed out, there are some differences between the two works. Prinicipally, Sgarbi’s version has a candle in the upper left corner, which had led journalists to speculate that he may have inserted the object in order to hide the theft. It is not known who added the candle, but it seems to have happened by 2019, when the painting was sent to a restorer. Sgarbi told the Corriere della Serra that Manetti “put candles everywhere.”

Sgarbi has also claimed that the real crime is one of “defamation” and said he only found out about the investigation from the press. He contends that the stolen artwork was a 19th century copy of his painting, which was found in a house in Viterbo, a city north of Rome, that his mother bought in 2000. On X, he wrote that the accusations are “ridiculous” and a form of “political aggression.”

Sgarbi is a notorious right-wing art critic in Italy who is no stranger to controversy. He is currently accused of attempting to illegally export a €5 million ($5.5 million) painting Concert with Drinker by Valentin de Boulogne, which was seized in Monte Carlo in June 2021. Italy’s antitrust authority is also investigating charges that Sgarbi accepted lucrative offers to appear at cultural events.

Last year, he appeared on a panel organized by Rome’s MAXXI museum for contemporary art and was filmed going on a crude and sexist rant which he defended as “free speech.” “The d*ck is an organ of knowledge, that is of penetration, it serves to [make us] understand,” Sgarbi said, according to Euronews.

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