Four Antonello da Messina works stolen from museum in Sicily

Four artworks were stolen from the Museo Regionale di Messina (Museo Regionale Accascina) in Sicily on the night of August 15, during the city's Assumption Day celebrations and the traditional Vara procession.

Among the stolen works are three of the five surviving panels from Antonello da Messina's 1473 altarpiece Polittico di San Gregorio. The thieves abandoned two other panels, depicting St Benedict and St Gregory, just outside the museum as they fled.

The fourth work is a small double-sided painting depicting the Virgin and Child with a Franciscan friar on one side and Christ on the other. It came from the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold to the Sicilian Region through Christie's in 2003.

Italy's culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said he learned of the theft "with shock and sadness." Museum director Marisa Mercurio said the alarm system was working and guards were on site when the theft occurred.

Enzo Caruso, the local councillor for culture, said the state's roughly $15 million purchase of another Antonello work earlier this year may have put the museum on criminals' radar, calling the theft "almost certainly a commissioned" job.

Lynda Albertson, head of the art crime research group ARCA, said stealing a famous Antonello may be easier than selling one, noting such works often pass between criminals as collateral for other illicit activity.