An erotic Roman mosaic stolen during World War II has been formally returned to the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, ending an eight-decade search for the artwork. Italian cultural-heritage police said the travertine panel, which shows a semi-nude couple, arrived at the site on Tuesday after Germany handed it over under a bilateral diplomatic arrangement. The panel, dated to between the late 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D., was removed from the Pompeii area in 1943-44 by a German army captain serving in the Wehrmacht’s supply corps. It later surfaced in a private collection in Stuttgart. After the owner’s death, his heirs alerted the Carabinieri’s art-crime unit in 2023, allowing experts to authenticate the piece and organize its repatriation through the Italian Consulate in Stuttgart. Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel welcomed the hand-over as “the healing of an open wound,” noting that the work illustrates a shift in Roman art toward depictions of everyday intimacy rather than mythological heroes. Catalogued and restored, the mosaic will go on display in Pompeii’s Antiquarium, where it will be used for research and educational programs on domestic life in the ancient city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.