2023-12-16 10:29:00

As he prepares to sell his house, Raphaël De Temmerman might well receive a visit from the… Italian authorities. Indeed, the resident of Herzele (regarding forty kilometers from Brussels, in East Flanders) requested an assessment of his staircase, in which is embedded an engraved stone brought back from a trip to Italy in 1975. And Raphaël was surprised to learn that the engraving he has had for years is not only authentic, but was actually stolen, before being sold to him.

Near The last news, Raphael and his son recounted how they recovered this stone during their expedition to Italy. “On this trip we visited Pompeii […] To be honest, we mostly saw a lot of rubble there. During the excursion, I noticed that we were being followed by a man carrying a brown burlap bag,” explains the Flemish father. The individual in question then called out to them to show them what he was carrying: scenes in stone, “perhaps in marble” according to Raphaël. The latter, who wanted a souvenir from Pompeii, agreed to buy one of the scenes from the mysterious seller. “It was clear he wanted to get rid of his stones quickly. I don’t remember how much we paid, but expensive.”

“As an archeology student, I cried when I saw Pompeii with my own eyes during my Erasmus”

A piece of marble of inestimable value

Shortly following, the De Temmerman family carried out work on their house and decided to inlay the marble brought from Italy into the wall of the staircase. And since then, the scene has been there, so much so that no one paid attention to it anymore. Until the sale of the house and the visit of experts from the Gallo-Roman museum in Tongeren. Then that of the judicial police… Because it turns out that the marble bought by Raphael, which represents the earthquake which struck Pompeii in 62 AD, was stolen on July 14, 1975 from the L. Caecilius Iucundus.

Italy therefore wants to recover this piece of its cultural heritage, “of inestimable value”. The Italian carabinieri might therefore come and visit the De Temmerman family, but will first carry out the investigation to determine whether the work was indeed stolen. But according to Mathias Desmet, doctoral researcher in artistic crime (UGent), Raphaël and his son have little to fear: “Even if it turns out that the work was actually stolen in Italy, the theft is prescribed and the illegal trade in stolen cultural property is difficult to judge due to the inadequacy of Belgian legislation in this area”. If the Carabinieri, following investigation, want to recover the piece of marble, Raphaël’s son intends to claim compensation, “because we have carefully preserved it”, he slips.

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