’S-HERTOGENBOSCH, the Netherlands — A small 16th-century oil on panel largely kept in storage at a Kansas City, Mo., museum is a work by the Dutch Renaissance master Hieronymus Bosch, researchers here said on Monday, a finding that, if accepted by other scholars, would add to the tiny list of about 25 recognized Bosch paintings in the world. 
 
 The painting, “The Temptation of St. Anthony,” dated 1500-1510, had previously been attributed to the workshop of Bosch or to a follower of Bosch, known for his comic and surreal images of heaven and hell and the earthly moral purgatory in between. 
 
 The new attribution is based on studies of underdrawings, a comparison of motifs and details on a microscopic level with similar ones in undisputed Bosch paintings, and an analysis of Bosch’s brush work. Taken together, the evidence indicates that “St. Anthony” is in Bosch’s “handwriting,” said experts from the Bosch Research and Conservation Project, a six-year, $3.3 million effort to study and catalog all of the artist’s works before the 500th anniversary of his death in 1516. 
 
 “It’s the same painting, and all of a sudden you see it with more affection,” Julián Zugazagoitia, the director and chief executive officer of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, said on Friday in Amsterdam. “It’s like your child who just won the Nobel Prize.” ||||| This undated image provided by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, shows “The Temptation of St. Anthony.” The museum announced Monday, Feb. 1, 2016, that the 16th century painting,... (Associated Press) 
 
 This undated image provided by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, shows “The Temptation of St. Anthony.” The museum announced Monday, Feb. 1, 2016, that the 16th century painting,... (Associated Press) 
 
 NELSON-ATKINS HAS A REAL HIERONYMUS BOSCH 
 
 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, has learned that a 16th century oil-wood panel the museum owns was painted by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. 
 
 The work, "The Temptation of St. Anthony," was previously attributed to the artist's workshop. The piece is on loan to the Het Noordbrabents Museum in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, which is Bosch's hometown, for an exhibition opening Feb. 13. The show in Holland marks 500 years since Bosch's death in 1516. 
 
 The attribution of the work was made by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project, which sent a team to Kansas City to study the painting and concluded that it could "be ascribed to Bosch with confidence." 
 
 There are only about 25 paintings — including four others in the U.S. — in existence that are known to be by Bosch, including "The Garden of Earthly Delights." His style is known for elaborate, fantastical, colorful landscapes filled with exotic creatures and references to Biblical stories. 
 
 According to the Nelson-Atkins, investigators were able to detect Bosch's typical technique of sketching an underdrawing over the ground layer of his oak panels using a coarse brush with thin paint. Bosch also often changed his designs, and a change in the shape of the jug in the St. Anthony panel was apparent. 
 
 The work dates from 1500 to 1510 and was last on view at the Nelson-Atkins in 2003. Because of its inclusion in the show in Holland this year and other pending invitations, it's not known when it will be shown in Kansas City next. It's the Nelson-Atkins' sole Bosch, but the museum is opening a show of Dutch art Feb. 24 called "Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer." 
 
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 EPCOT FLOWER AND GARDEN FEST AT DISNEY WORLD 
 
 The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival gets under way March 2 for a 90-day run through May 30 at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. 
 
 The event features topiaries of Disney characters, floral displays, gardening seminars and a concert series. Admission to the festival is included in regular admission to Epcot. 
 
 Plants, grasses and mosses are used to create the character topiaries, which will include Peter Pan, Snow White and "Frozen" sisters Anna and Elsa. 
 
 The festival also includes Butterflies on the Go, a garden with nearly 1,000 butterflies flitting amid nectar plants like passion flower, coral honeysuckle, lantana, butterfly bush, blue porterweed, scarlet milkweed and canna lily. 
 
 Food and beverage items will include garden- and backyard-inspired creations like a field greens salad, using greens harvested from Epcot's Land pavilion, along with heirloom apples, Stilton cheese and dried blueberries. 
 
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 SHOW IN PORTLAND, OREGON, FOCUSING ON JAPANESE ARCHITECT 
 
 A monthlong exhibition at the Center for Architecture in Portland, Oregon, looks at the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. 
 
 The show focuses on Kuma's design for the Portland Japanese Garden's Cultural Crossing expansion project, which is Kuma's first public commission in North America. The $33.5 million project includes Kuma's design for a Cultural Village of three LEED-certified buildings to house a learning center, a library, gallery space and a traditional tea cafe. 
 
 The show at the Center for Architecture, "Tsunagu: Connecting to the Architecture of Kengo Kuma," uses project images, construction drawings, and an interactive use of space to explore Kuma's use of nature, natural materials and Japanese traditions. Tsunagu means connection but also suggests a connection between nature and people. 
 
 The immersive show will also include materials that can be touched, seen, and smelled, such as screens, tatami mats and samples of the cedar and granite used in the new buildings. 
 
 The free show is open daily Feb. 4-29 at the Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Ave., in Portland. 
 
 The Portland Japanese Garden, located in Portland's Washington Park, has been closed for construction of the Cultural Crossing expansion project but reopens March 1. ||||| Paintings stolen from Amsterdam museum have been recovered from house in stronghold of crime syndicate near Naples 
 
 Two Vincent van Gogh paintings that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam more than a decade ago have been recovered by Italian law enforcement authorities in Naples after an investigation targeting a powerful organised crime syndicate involved in the cocaine trade. 
 
 The paintings, View of the Sea at Scheveningen, painted in 1882, and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, painted in 1884, were discovered after allegedly being hidden away in a house affiliated with an international drug trafficker based in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. 
 
 Officials hailed the discovery as a major victory in the fight against organised crime. It also provided an insight into the inner workings of the Italian underworld, where precious works of art are seen as valuable currency. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, 1884. Photograph: Getty Images 
 
 The authenticity of the paintings has already been confirmed by an expert from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, from where they were stolen in 2002. 
 
 Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh museum, said he wasn’t sure when the paintings could be returned to the Netherlands, as they are likely to be needed as evidence in the ensuing trial. 
 
 
 
 “After so many years I didn’t dare to think they would ever return,” Rüger said. “We’ve waited 14 years for this moment and of course we’d like to take them straight home. We’ll need to exercise a bit of patience, but I am convinced we can count on the support of the Italian authorities.” 
 
 The frames have been removed and the seascape has a small patch of damage in the bottom left-hand corner, the museum said, but otherwise the paintings appeared to be in good condition. 
 
 
 
 The paintings were discovered thanks to a tipoff from Mario Cerrone, a suspected drug trafficker arrested in January who collaborated with the Camorra, a notorious Neapolitan crime syndicate made up of numerous clans. 
 
 The discovery was part of a broader investigation into the Camorra’s Amato-Pagano clan, which prosecutors said was one of the most dangerous and active gangs of drug traffickers operating in the region. Investigators came across the paintings in a building that they were searching after a judge last week ordered the seizure of the gang’s assets. They also seized a small plane. 
 
 “When we finally found them, we did not believe our eyes,” a local official told La Repubblica. 
 
 The FBI considered the 2002 heist one of the “top 10” art crimes, according to its website. The thieves entered the Van Gogh museum from the roof of the building, which allowed them to get past security and cameras undetected, even though their entry did trigger alarms. They had used a ladder to climb up to a window and then smashed 
 
 Two men, Octave Durham, an art thief who earned the nickname The Monkey for his ability to evade police, and his accomplice Henk Bieslijn, were eventually convicted of the theft in 2004 after police discovered their DNA at the scene of the crime. They were handed four year sentences, but authorities were never able to track down the stolen works. 
 
 View of the Sea at Scheveningen is one of Van Gogh’s early paintings and depicts the beach resort close to The Hague. It was the only work in the museum’s collection from Van Gogh’s two years in The Hague and one of just two Dutch seascapes the artist made. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Detail from Vincent van Gogh’s View of the Sea at Scheveningen. Photograph: Getty Images 
 
 Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen is a smaller work that Van Gogh painted for his mother in 1884, and depicts a church in Brabant where his father Theodorus was attached as a preacher. After his father’s death in 1885 Van Gogh revised the painting, adding figures of women wearing black shawls used in mourning. 
 
 Dario Franceschini, the Italian culture minister, said the discovery was extraordinary and “confirmed the strength of the Italian system in the fight against the illicit trafficking of works of art”. 
 
 John Dickie, a historian and expert in organised crime in Italy, said the reason the country was known for its expertise in following the illicit trade of art was the extent to which that trade existed in the first place. 
 
 “Italy also has the best mafia police in the world, because it has the most powerful mafia networks,” he added. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Axel Rüger (left), director of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and Naples prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo shake hands in front of the recovered Van Gogh painting Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen. Photograph: Ciro Fusco/EPA 
 
 The town of Castellammare di Stabia, about 19 miles south-east of Naples, where the paintings were found, has long been known as a Camorra stronghold. It was the home of Assunta Maresca, known as Pupetta, who was a former beauty queen, convicted murderer, and Camorra boss described as a trailblazer and suffragette in the syndicate. 
 
 Unlike the highly organised Sicilian mafia, the Camorra is an “archipelago of gangs”, Dickie said, with some branches being more sophisticated than others. 
 
 “It is easy to say the Camorra did it and then jump to the conclusion that the Camorra is moving into the art market,” Dickie said. 
 
 He said the discovery and the alleged involvement of the Camorra reflected the opportunistic nature of the Neapolitan syndicate. Its members spend a lot of time in prison and are part of a vast underworld network in which illegal goods are sold and traded. 
 
 “I don’t think we need to conclude that it’s the Camorra boss who is putting this art on his mantelpiece. A lot of times these people don’t have a lot of class [and] they wouldn’t necessarily be impressed by having this,” Dickie said. 
 
 Federico Varese, an expert in criminology from Oxford University, said it was unsurprising that the discovery exposed a link between Amsterdam and the Camorra, given the Dutch city’s reputation as a major drug hub. Cross-border investigations dating back to the 1980s had found the presence of the Camorra in Amsterdam. 
 
 “What I know for sure is that a lot of camorristi are in Amsterdam, not because they want to be rooted there or deal in racketeering of shops or that kind of thing, but because they are there to buy drugs. Amsterdam is a hub for the buying and selling of illegal goods,” Varese said. 
 
 The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, informed his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of the former Israeli leader Shimon Peres. Renzi also tweeted a message of thanks to Italian law enforcement, saying he was proud of their work.
– Last displayed more than a decade ago and kept mostly in storage at a small museum in Kansas City is not the treatment you'd expect for a rare painting by a Renaissance master. But the Kansas City Star reports that's exactly what's happened to The Temptation of St. Anthony, now believed to be one of only about 25 recognized paintings by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. Since purchasing it from a New York gallery in 1935, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has operated under the assumption that the 15-by-10-inch, 500-year-old oil-on-wood painting was simply created by Bosch's workshop. But that changed when a team of Bosch experts came to look at it in September as part of their attempt to catalog all of Bosch's work in time for the 500th anniversary of his death this year, according to the New York Times. Those experts left the Missouri museum believing The Temptation of St. Anthony can be "ascribed to Bosch with confidence," the AP reports. The panel is believed to be part of a larger work, possibly part of a wing of a dismantled triptych. "I'm stoked," Rima Girnius, a Nelson-Atkins associate curator, tells the Star. The experts used infrared photography and reflectography to look at layers of work that had been erased or painted over while comparing its motifs and brush work, on a microscopic level, to other Bosch works. In fact, they're so confident they've uncovered a lost Bosch that The Temptation of St. Anthony went on display in Bosch's hometown in the Netherlands on Monday. “It’s the same painting, and all of a sudden you see it with more affection,” Nelson-Atkins director Julián Zugazagoitia tells the Times. (A "toy" shipped from Belgium was actually a lost Picasso.)