Madonna of the Yarnwinder recovered

Saw this right before I left the UK, and was a bit surprised to see it given so little coverage back in the US press:

A stolen Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece worth up to £25 million was recovered yesterday more than four years after it was stolen in a daylight raid at a Scottish castle.

Police said that they had recovered the 500-year-old Madonna with the Yarnwinder in the Glasgow area after a multi-agency operation. Three men from Lancashire and another from Glasgow were arrested. . .

Police said that, acting on intelligence, they intercepted a meeting between five people in the centre of Glasgow at about 11am yesterday. The painting was recovered at the scene. They refused to comment on newspaper reports that the painting was recovered at a Glasgow solicitors’ office.

From the Times of London, which on the next day reported:

Two solicitors were among four men in their fifties who appeared in court today . . .

Calum Jones, 52, a partner at HBJ Gateley Wareing in Glasgow, where The Madonna with the Yarnwinder was recovered by police on Thursday, and Marshall Ronald, 51, a solicitor from Greater Manchester, were charged with conspiracy to rob and extort money.

The full story clearly has not come out yet.

Posted by David on October 16, 2007 5:30 PM