Stolen painting returns to Italy after Norfolk woman 'does right thing'

A 16th-century Madonna and Child stolen from a museum more than 50 years ago is to be returned to Italy after a Norfolk woman decided to "do the right thing".

- Dalya Alberge

After years of soul-searching - and persuading by an art lawyer - Barbara de Dozsa decided to hand the painting over to the Civic Museum of Belluno, which last saw it in 1973.

She previously argued ownership, partly because her former husband, the late Baron de Dozsa, bought it in good faith soon after the robbery.

The work was painted by the Italian artist Antonio Solario, known as Lo Zingaro (the Gypsy), some of whose other paintings are held by the National Gallery in London.

Acquired by Belluno in 1872, it was among several paintings stolen a century later. Some were recovered soon afterwards in Austria, where De Dozsa's husband bought the Solario painting from an unnamed source.

Until the couple's divorce, it was in their home, East Barsham Manor near Fakenham, described by Henry VIII as his "small country palace".