Art Thief Released

Prosecutors in St. Petersburg have dropped all charges against Ivan Sobolev, who had been detained in the theft of nearly $5 million in art from the State Hermitage Museum, reports the Moscow Times. Sobolev was released from the pre-trial detention facility where he had been held since early August. Police told Interfax that Sobolev had been implicated only in thefts that occurred before 1995 and that the 10-year statute of limitations had therefore expired. Elsewhere, The Independent reports that two canvases owned by Jean Preston, who died last summer at age seventy-seven, are by the Renaissance master Fra Angelico. Dillian Gordon, curator of early Italian paintings at the National Gallery in London, called it a "breathtaking" discovery. For the full story - click the title Irish Art