A priceless mosaic that disappeared from a museum during the second world war has been found… in a New York apartment under a cup of coffee.
An Italian expert on ancient stone and marble, Dario Del Bufalo, found the mosaic, originally commissioned by Emperor Caligula, and discussed how he did so with CBS’s 60 minutes earlier this week.
While Del Bufalo was giving a lecture about the common reddish rock used by Roman emperors and handing out signed copies of his book ‘Porphyry’ he overheard a man and woman say that the woman had the mosaic pictured in the book.
The couple were referring to an image of the long-lost mosaic that once formed one part of a floor on one of Emperor Caligula’s ‘party ships’.
“There was a lady with a young guy with a strange hat that came to the table,” Del Bufalo told CBS. “And he told her, ‘What a beautiful book. Oh, Helen, look, that’s your mosaic.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s my mosaic.’”
After tracking the woman down, Del Bufalo discovered her name was Helen Fioratti, an art dealer and gallery owner.
According to an interview with the New York Times, Helen and her husband bought the mosaic from a noble Italian family in the 1960s. When it arrived in New York, the couple turned it into a coffee table.
“It was an innocent purchase,” Fioratti told the Times. “It was our favorite thing and we had it for 45 years.”
Regardless of the couples obvious love for the item, the Manhattan district attorney’s office seized the mosaic last month, saying that it had been stolen from a museum at some point.
“These items may be beautiful, storied, and immensely valuable to collectors, but willfully disregarding the provenance of an item is effectively offering tacit approval of a harmful practice that is, fundamentally, criminal,” New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said in a statement.
The saddest part of seizing what was sure to be the centrepiece of Fioratti’s apartment is that you just know she was taking great care of the 2,000-year-old mosaic.
I TOLD YOU TO USE A COASTER!
— Deth Veggie (@DethVeggie) November 22, 2021
Del Bufalo said he felt very sorry for Fioratti,
“I couldn’t do anything different, knowing that my museum in Nemi is missing the best part that went through the centuries, through the war, through a fire, and then through an Italian art dealer, and finally could go back to the museum.”
Del Bufalo also mentioned that he wants to make a copy of the mosaic for Fioratti to keep in her apartment.
“That’s the only thing I felt I should have done.”
“I think my soul would feel a little better,” he said.
Hopefully, Del Bufalo makes good on his word and Helen Fioratti gets to put another cup of tea down on what was once her favourite thing. Or at least an imitation of it.
