Art News

United States Judge Robert Hinkle: Baroque artwork to return to man’s heirs

TALLAHASSEE (AP).- A federal judge has ordered the return of a 16th Century Baroque painting depicting Christ carrying the cross to the heirs of a Jewish man who died shortly before the German occupation of France in World War II. U.S. Judge Robert Hinkle filed the order Monday to return the work — “Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue” — to the descendants of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe. U.S. authorities seized the Italian painting last November from a Florida museum that was lent it by the famed Pinacoteca di Brera museum of Milan. The painting by Girolamo Romano is believed to date to about 1538 and was purchased by di Giuseppe in 1914 during an auction in Paris. He died in 1940, a month before Nazi troops entered and occupied France. The work is believed to have been among more than 70 paintings from