A dead man raised to life, one of the finest 18th-century painters in the New World, an international art heist. How do these three scenes fit together?
They relate to the painting Resurrection of Lazarus by Miguel Cabrera, who lived from 1695 to 1768 in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern Mexico). Celebrated as the greatest painter of his time in New Spain, Cabrera was a favorite of the archbishop of Mexico City. He was commissioned to do many works, the majority of which were religious in nature, but he also painted some portraits, including his own.
In 2008, nine oil paintings by Cabrera were stolen from a church in Lima, Peru.
Eight of these were recovered from an auction house in Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 2008, but the ninth and final stolen painting—The Resurrection of Lazarus—remained elusive.
The painting depicts a scene from John 11 that recounts one of Jesus’ greatest miracles. A man named Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, had passed away. Grieved by the death, Jesus came to where Lazarus was laid to rest and asked for the stone that sealed the tomb to be removed. Since Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, there was concern on the part of his family that there would be a stench, but they obliged nonetheless. After the stone was removed, Jesus prayed and then “cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’ ” (John 11:43–44). Cabrera’s painting shows the moment of Lazarus being unwrapped from his burial cloths.
In early 2014, Cabrera’s Resurrection of Lazarus was finally recovered; far from Iowa, this painting was discovered at an auction house in New York. All nine stolen paintings were repatriated to Peru, which seems a fitting end to a six-year search. Who heisted it, however, remains a mystery.
A dead man raised to life, one of the finest 18th-century painters in the New World, an international art heist. How do these three scenes fit together?
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