The feds have seized a 13th-century painting from Sotheby’s auction house — because it was stolen in 1986 from a Swiss safe deposit box, according to court papers obtained by The Post.
The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office filed a forfeiture complaint on Monday for “Madonna and Child” by renowned Italian artist Duccio di Buoninsegna.
Sotheby’s learned that the wood-panel oil painting was stolen property in a routine check of art databases and took it off the auction block.
“When the US government got involved, Sotheby’s cooperated fully with the investigation into the facts and circumstances of the underlying importation and consignment to us of the picture,” the auction house said in a statement Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the 27.5-inch by 18-inch painting vanished from the safe deposit box in Geneva in 1986.
Interpol took over the probe in 1991 from the local police — but the case went cold until the painting found its way to Sotheby’s in January.
The artwork was partly owned by Paulette and Roger Aligardi, both of whom were the heirs of Camille Marie Rose Aprosio, the papers state.
Aprosio and her partner, John Cunningham, held 50 percent interest in an “unnamed painting,” which they deposited in a Geneva safe deposit box at Union de Banques Suisses in 1977.
Then, in 1980, Aprosio died and her heirs appointed Henri Aligardi to represent their interests with respect to the painting in conjunction with Cunningham, the documents say.
Six years later, Aligardi and Cunningham transferred the painting to a new safe deposit box at a different UBS branch.
Meanwhile, Cunningham had also given a percentage of his interest in the painting to two other men, Michael Hennessy and John Ryan, the documents state.
Hennessy and Ryan later reported that Cunningham had removed the artwork from UBS and put it in another account in his own name, the papers say.