Most of gold pieces made by 19th-century jeweller Castellani returned to Rome museum after plan to smuggle them to St Petersburg falls through

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Italian art detectives have recovered jewels stolen in a 2013 heist organised by a wealthy Russian woman.

The jewel-encrusted gold pieces, made by Italian jewellers Castellani – which rose to fame in the 19th century for recreating jewellery found in archaeological digs and embellishing them with gems or mosaics – were snatched from Rome’s Villa Giulia museum.

“It’s a great day, now the gold returns to the museum,” the culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said on Thursday, as detectives explained how they had recovered 23 of the 27 pieces stolen.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the 23 items recovered. Photograph: Massimo Percossi/EPA

Marked with the Castellani trademark, the pieces were hailed as extraordinary examples of founder Fortunato Pio Castellani’s filigree and gold-speckling techniques. They had been on display in the Villa Giulia museum.

Castellani’s work is found in museum collections from the Louvre in Paris to the Victoria and Albert in London, but the Villa Giulia trove was the most admired.

Most of the haul, worth about €3m (£2.4m), was recovered after a tail was put on two suspects who were believed to be trying to hawk them to Italian buyers, police told reporters.

The Russian woman who organised the heist, who was not named, had been planning to smuggle the stolen earrings, bracelets and necklaces to St Petersburg, police said, but was alarmed by the publicity surrounding the robbery.

Detectives were alerted to her possible involvement after it emerged she had contacted a series of Italian antique dealers in a failed bid to get her hands on Castellani items. She was stopped with a Castellani catalogue in her bag and photographs of the display cases in the museum on her mobile phone, police said.

Two suspects were caught in 2013 trying to sell seven of the jewels. Most of the other pieces were recovered last year, police said.