Stolen Painting Story a Scam, Insurance Firm Says

SACRAMENTO — A man collected $410,000 from his insurance company after reporting two Italian Renaissance paintings stolen from the bedroom of his ranch house. But it turns out the artworks never left the Vatican.

About the only proof of ownership that Lucio Ambroselli had offered when he insured the works three weeks earlier were two amateurish snapshots of the paintings hanging in the Vatican Art Museum, investigators said.

Now State Farm wants its money back, and Ambroselli has been charged with fraud.

Ambroselli, 57, was arrested last week after more than three years of investigation by the FBI and an Italian art theft unit.

The retired Alitalia employee is accused of swindling State Farm by claiming that the paintings, an Iranian silk rug, a Russian icon and a jade Buddha were stolen in 1992. Police found the rug, icon and statue wrapped in sheets stuffed into a duffel bag when they searched his house Friday.

The insurance agent who visited Ambroselli’s house in Loomis, 20 miles east of Sacramento, was shown two sealed wooden crates. Ambroselli said the paintings were inside, undergoing a chemical treatment to protect them from light and humidity, and could not be shown, the company said.

Photographs of the paintings, which Ambroselli said were “Death of the Dragon” by Ghirlandaio and “Madonna Con Bambino” by Piero della Francesca, were affixed to the crates.

When the paintings were reported missing three weeks later, State Farm spokesman Lonny Haskins said, the firm “had suspicions . . . but having no proof or anything [on which] to base an assumption that something was wrong, we had to go ahead and pay the claim.”

The company launched a probe, and two paintings identical to those in the photos were found at the Vatican, where they had hung for centuries. The works are really “San Giorgio Che Occide Il Drago” by Paris Bordone and “Madonna Della Pera” by Moretto da Brescia.