Puzzler says he has cracked code to stolen Belgian masterpiece

Citizens told not to dig up square in Ghent to look for 15th-century painting missing since 1934

It has been described as one of the most enduring mysteries in the history of art.



The twelve interior panels. This open view measures 11 ft × 15 ft (3.4 m × 4.6 m)



Closed view, back panels


Since a daring heist in 1934, the whereabouts of one of the 12 panels of Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Adoration of the Lamb, arguably the world’s first great oil painting has baffled police detectives, bemused amateur sleuths and even driven to despair Nazi agents ordered by Joseph Goebbels to find it as a gift for Adolf Hitler.

On Friday, however, the authors of a new book said at a packed press conference with the mayor of Ghent that they believed they had discovered the location of the missing piece – just below one of the Flemish city’s pretty cobbled squares.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...an-masterpiece