$100m Art Masterpiece Recovered

One of the most valuable paintings ever stolen in Britain, a portrait of the Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci, has been recovered by detectives more than four years after it was seized from a Scottish castle, reports Severin Carrell for The Guardian. In an audacious art theft in August 2003, two men posing as tourists overpowered a young tour guide at Drumlanrig castle in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and—in clear view of CCTV cameras—lifted the painting off the wall and escaped. Soon after the police investigation was wound down in 2005, the painting was added to the top ten of the most-wanted stolen art works in the world by the FBI. The painting, Madonna of the Yarnwinder, has been valued at $100 million and was the centerpiece of the private collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, one of Britain's richest landowners, who died last month at the age of eighty-three. His family had owned the painting for two-hundred years. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art