[MSN] A Roman fresco stolen from the Vesuvian town of Oplontis and recovered by Italian art police from a private house in Paris has gone on show to the public for the first time at Rome's Palazzo Massimo.

[MSN]

Oplontis fresco unveiled in Rome.

A Roman fresco stolen from the Vesuvian town of Oplontis and recovered by
Italian art police from a private house in Paris has gone on show to the
public for the first time at Rome's Palazzo Massimo. The fragmentary fresco
dates from the first century AD and at almost three metres long is the
largest landscape painting ever discovered in the area near Naples that was
covered in ash during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
Art police believe the fresco was secretly detached from the walls of a
villa in Oplontis (modern day Torre Annunziata) in the 1970s and
subsequently travelled to Europe on the illegal art market. Investigators
say the painting was in Geneva in the early 1980s, and it then moved to
Brussels before ending up in the French capital. It was removed from the
house of a French publisher and art collector in February and returned to
Italy.

Fresco fans wanting to see the landscape have until 1 June to visit it in
Rome, where it is on display as part of the Rosso Pompeiano exhibition at
Palazzo Massimo, after which it will be returned to the Pompeii archaeology
department. Entry to the museum is free over the next few days as, like all
city-run museums, Palazzo Massimo celebrates Culture Week.

Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Largo Peretti, tel. 063996770. 09.00-19.45. Mon
closed.

http://www.wantedinrome.com/