Priceless stolen bust goes home

The sculpture of Dr Peter Turner, an eminent botanist and physician, was taken from the nave of St Olave’s in the City of London on the night of April 17, 1941.

But it was only located when it was consigned for sale earlier this year and is now due to take up its original position in the medieval church where diarist Samuel Pepys is buried.

The 1614 statue, worth an estimated £70,000, was recovered after a curator at the Museum of London got wind of the impending Dreweatts auction and tipped off church officials.

The Art Loss Register (ALR), an organisation which specialises in tracking down stolen pieces and resolving art-related disputes, took on the case and the alabaster bust was withdrawn from the sale.

An investigation later revealed a chain of previous buyers including Belgian art trader Paul de Grande who bought the work from an ecclesiastical dealer in the Netherlands.