Cultural Property Theft – Random Interests

German museum and auctioneer Im Kinsky tussle over looted glass goblet

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/museum-auctioneer-tussle-over-looted-goblet

2018-05-11_12-02-10

German museum and auctioneer Im Kinsky tussle over looted glass goblet

Object was returned to consigner not museum from where it was looted at the end of Second World War

CATHERINE HICKLEY – June 6, 2018

302_ne_ch_goblet_cut_01 — The goblet was stolen from Berlin’s Märkisches Museum at the end of the Second World War

A multicoloured marbled glass goblet dating from around 1800, which was stolen at the end of the Second World War, is the subject of a dispute between the Vienna auction house Im Kinsky and Berlin’s Märkisches Museum.

The museum bought the goblet at auction in 1890 along with eight similar glass objects, all of which were looted in the chaos at the end of the war. Little was known about the goblet’s history until it was offered for sale at the Glasgalerie Michael Kovacek in 1990, according to Im Kinsky’s lawyer Ernst Ploil, on consignment for a German seller. The museum tried to recover the glass at that time, but Kovacek failed to stop the sale.

The goblet surfaced again this year at Im Kinsky in Vienna, where Kovacek and Ploil are managing partners. In the catalogue for the auction on 25 April, the provenance history included the brief description “Museum Berlin”.

At the request of Ulf Bischof, the Berlin lawyer representing the Märkisches Museum, Im Kinsky withdrew the goblet from the auction and returned it to the consignor. The museum then offered to pay a “finder’s reward” of €5,000 to avoid a legal battle but the consignor rejected the offer, saying he had another potential buyer who was offering €48,000.

“Our client is deeply concerned by this behaviour,” Bischof says. “It is unprecedented that an auction house knowingly accepts a stolen museum work on consignment and uses a cryptic ‘Museum Berlin’ provenance for advertising.

“Collectors as well as the museum community should be alerted to such questionable business practice.”

Bischof says the goblet was produced at Zechlinerhütte, a former glass-making centre in Rheinsberg, north of Berlin.

It is not known exactly how it came to be lost in the Second World War, but many Berlin museums stored their collections in bunkers and other bomb-proof locations to protect them from air raids. Some of these stored treasures were plundered by the Red Army; others were looted by ordinary German citizens.

Ploil argues that statutes of limitations would hinder any efforts by the museum to pursue its claim in court and that the previous buyers bought the goblet in good faith, thereby obtaining legal title.

“The fact that the goblet was previously in the museum was known, but no one knew it was stolen,” Ploil says. “Any restitution claim for this has expired.”

Bischof says that the Märkisches Museum still holds legal title. He insists that whoever buys it now cannot claim a good-faith purchase because the seller is aware of its tainted past. Any attempt to sell the goblet without informing the buyer in full of the ownership claim may be liable for fraud, he says.

Bischof also argues that even though the theft itself is time-barred under statutes of limitation, laws against concealing stolen goods are still applicable. He has informed Austrian law enforcers.

Court upholds Italian art dealer’s conviction over rare church murals

http://www.ekathimerini.com/229279/article/ekathimerini/news/court-upholds-italian-art-dealers-conviction-over-rare-church-murals

2018-06-07_13-08-01

Court upholds Italian art dealer’s conviction over rare church murals

YIANNIS PAPADOPOULOS – Jun 7, 2018

An Athens appeals court has upheld an 11-year sentence against a Sicilian art and antiquities dealer convicted over the theft four decades ago of four rare murals from an Early Christian rural church in Steni on Evia.

Gianfranco Becchina, who is now 80 years old, was not present at Friday’s hearing in Athens, but his lawyer told the court that her client, being an expert in antiquities, was unaware of the murals’ importance and had no role in their theft. Judges rejected the appeal, upholding a conviction against Becchina on charges of receiving stolen goods.

The case dates to 1978, when a known thief from Pyrgos in the northwestern Peloponnese broke into the Church of Palaiopanaghias and chiseled off four 16th century paintings of the saints Ermolaos, Nikitas, Makarios of Egypt and Nestor, causing extensive damage to the interior of the listed monument. The man was sentenced to life in prison in 1984 over a string of unrelated thefts, but the four murals remained missing for years until they were discovered in 2001 during an investigation into a gallery in Basel, Switzerland, run by Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek.

There, Swiss authorities discovered a trove of stolen Italian antiquities, as well as the four Greek paintings that are believed to belong to the so-called School of Thebes movement.

The paintings were repatriated to Greece in 2010 and are now on display the Byzantine Museum in Athens. Their total value has been estimated in the range of 160,000 euros.

LOST MASTERPIECES – He Stole Priceless Old Masters. His Mom Destroyed Them—And Him

https://www.thedailybeast.com/he-stole-priceless-old-masters-his-mom-destroyed-them-and-him?ref=scroll

2018-06-04_16-13-05

LOST MASTERPIECES – He Stole Priceless Old Masters. His Mom Destroyed Them—And Him

ALLISON MCNEARNEY – Jun 1, 2018

180602-mcnearney-stephane-breitwieser-hero_zkdv0o — *PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH BROCKWAY/THE DAILY BEAST, JEF-INFOJEF/WIKI COMMONS*

2018-06-04_16-10-27 — *Stéphane Breitwieser*

Stéphane Breitwieser stole over $1 billion-worth of art, one of the most prolific art thieves of modern times. He loved what he stole. His mother Mireille, disastrously, did not.

It was a rare, 16th-century bugle that finally took him down.

Stéphane Breitwieser was visiting the Richard Wagner Museum in Switzerland and was captivated by the magnificent brass piece that was one of only three that existed in the world. So he did what came naturally to him after nearly seven years of indulging his love of art—he stole it.

But this time, unlike hundreds of times before, his brazen actions did him in. When he decided to return to the museum two days later to see what else might catch his eye, a security guard recognized him and called the police. Breitwieser’s crime spree had come to an end.

For over six years, Breitwieser, an ordinary Frenchman with an extraordinary love of art, trolled museums and private collections across Europe, helping himself to the pieces that caught his eye. He amassed a private collection of his own, to the tune of 239 pieces of art and priceless artifacts from 172 institutions totaling over a billion dollars. He was one of the most prolific art thieves in modern history.

His crimes against the European art world were bad enough. But Breitwieser committed one other unforgivable sin—he entrusted much of his hoard to his mom.

When the law eventually caught up to him in late 2001, his dear mamanMireille destroyed over 100 pieces of art and precious artifacts that were residing in her home and that were ultimately thought to be worth $30 to $40 million.

It all started when Breitwieser was a young lad in his early twenties. He had embarked on a career as a waiter, working mostly across the border from his hometown of Mulhouse, France, in Switzerland. While that may have been his day job, Breitwieser professed to be a “self-taught art lover.”

In 1994, according to a 2005 article in Forbes, he was visiting the Musée des Amis de Thann in Alsace, France, when he became enraptured by an 18th-century pistol.

It was the lax security around the piece that spurred him to make a move that would eventually define his life. Noticing that the case was unlocked, Breitwieser decided to relieve the museum of their antique firearm.

“The pistol fascinated me. My heart was going 100 miles an hour, I was terrified, but I was driven by passion. I asked myself, ‘What’s holding me back?’” Breitwieser said. “Afterwards, I slept with the pistol beside me—I cleaned the wood, removed the rust; I treated it like a baby I was nursing. But I was still very frightened. Each day for a month I bought the newspaper, but the museum said nothing about the theft—a lot of museums prefer to smother these affairs. Eventually I calmed down.”

In his own memoir and to other journalists, he claimed that his spree began a year later, in 1995, when he and his girlfriend were visiting a castle in Switzerland.

There, he saw an 18th-century painting that wasn’t that valuable, but that reminded him of a Rembrandt.

“I was fascinated by her beauty, by the qualities of the woman in the portrait and by her eyes,” he told The Guardian in 2003. “I thought it was an imitation of Rembrandt.”

So, while his girlfriend played lookout—a role she would embrace for the remainder of his criminal career—he relieved the canvas of its frame, stuffed it under his jacket, and took it home.

He has maintained that his criminal inclination stemmed purely from a passion for the objects that fell victim to his sticky fingers. “I did it because I loved these things, because I simply had to possess them,” he told a writer for Forbes who also noted that he showed “not a shred of remorse.”

But it seems he may have been equally tempted by the lax security that plagues many smaller museums. “There was often no watchman or anything—all you had to do was bend down and pick something up,” he said.

Whether it was the antique pistol or the Rembrandt look-alike who proved his gateway drug, stealing art became an almost instant addiction. Until he was caught in November 2001, the waiter continued to travel around France, Switzerland, and other European countries and filch the treasures that caught his eye.

Particularly early on, these treasures were Old Master paintings. He took Pieter Brueghel’s “Cheat Profiting from His Master,” François Boucher’s “Sleeping Shepherd,” Corneille de Lyon’s “Mary, Queen of Scots,” and Antoine Watteau’s drawing “Two Men.” The most famous Old Master he stole was Lucas Cranach the Elder’s “Sybille, Princess of Cleves.”

But in addition to the Old Master paintings, Breitwieser increasingly helped himself to antique objects and artifacts of value. They ranged from ceramic pieces, vases, jewelry, priceless musical instruments, antique weapons, and much more.

“Looking back on this case, there was a pattern of just one or two objects being taken from different museums. But we thought it was the work of a gang. What happened here was simply unimaginable,” Alexandra Smith, operations manager at the Art Loss Register, told The New York Times.

The art thief wasn’t just exceptional for his audacity—according to experts in the field, serial thieves of fine art are very unusual; he was also unique in what he did with his spoils. Breitwieser wasn’t interested in profiting from his hobby, and he never attempted to sell a single piece. He truly wanted the pieces he took for his own enjoyment.

He stored most of his loot in his bedroom at his mom’s house in Mulhouse, France, and he took the utmost care with each treasure.

He often reframed the canvases before arranging them in his makeshift bedroom gallery in which, according to Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg in Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, he “kept the lights dim and the shades drawn to protect the paintings from fading.”

He did everything he could to care for the art. Everything, that is, except pass his “handle with care” mantra on to his mother.

After Breitwieser was arrested, his girlfriend-cum-accomplice informed his mom of what had happened.

Mireille freaked out. While she initially claimed that she had no idea the value of the works and that she destroyed them out of anger toward her son, many of the authorities involved have suspected that she did what she did out of loyalty.

And what she did turned what could have been an intriguing art theft caper into a tragedy.

Mireille got to work destroying all traces of evidence. She shredded 60 Old Master canvases, putting some of the pieces down the garbage disposal and throwing others out in the trash along with the broken frames.

Then, she rounded up 109 of the artifacts, statues, and antiques her son had collected and she unceremoniously dumped them in the Rhône-Rhine Canal. It is thought that she destroyed around two-thirds of Breitwieser’s entire haul.

Though utterly disastrous, her actions were initially effective. Unfortunately, she and her son were not on the same page.

Once in custody, Breitwieser hoped that the evidence of his crime would help get him out of his bind. He quickly confessed all, told the authorities where they could find his loot, and even, according to Guardian reporter Jon Henley, hoped his cooperation might help him win brownie points that would result in his being asked to advise some of the very same institutions he had robbed.

But when the authorities arrived at his mother’s home a week later, all traces of that evidence he had pointed them to were gone. It was only after ancient artifacts began washing up on the banks of the river that they started to suspect the true depth of the crime. It would take them several more months to get Mireille to confess to her role in the crime.

Given the extent of the destruction to cultural artifacts and priceless works of art, the parties involved got off with relatively light punishments.

Mireille served 18 months in prison, Breitwieser’s girlfriend did six months for her role, and the serial art lover-turned-thief served several years in Switzerland before being sentenced to 26 months in jail in France. In 2006, Breitwieser wrote a memoir titled Confessions of an Art Thief.

Perhaps Breitwieser’s punishment was worse than it seemed. After all, the “eccentric kleptomaniac,” as Smith called him, never stopped claiming he acted out of a love for the art. And in the end, that love was what led to their destruction.

While awaiting his sentencing in a jail in France, Breitwieser attempted suicide. Some reports claimed he did so after learning the fate of his precious treasures.

Fresh Hope That a Stolen Caravaggio ‘Nativity’ Could Be Found

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/arts/design/caravaggio-nativity-palermo.html

Elisabetta Povoledo – June 1, 2018

Fresh Hope That a Stolen Caravaggio ‘Nativity’ Could Be Found

A reproduction of Caravaggio’s “Nativity” in the Oratory of San Lorenzo, in Palermo, Italy, where the original was stolen in 1969.CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times

PALERMO, Sicily — On a stormy night in October 1969, thieves broke into the Oratory of San Lorenzo, a small chapel in what was then Palermo’s dilapidated Kalsa quarter, and made off with one of the city’s artistic masterpieces: Caravaggio’s “Nativity” altarpiece.

Investigators, both national and international, never gave up hunting for the lost painting, which is still No. 2 on the F.B.I.’s list of the top-10 art crimes. Leads pursued in the past all led to dead ends. But new evidence presented at the Oratory this week has revived hopes that the painting might still be found — or, at the very least, that its fate might be discovered.

merlin_138963561_00ec2f31-f16d-46e2-ad4b-b6adbc1075f5-jumbo — *Two officers from the Caribinieri, Italy’s military police, secure the area around the Oratory.CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times*

merlin_138963603_79da491c-b0e3-442b-bcab-04296011affe-superJumbo — An Italian parliamentary body commonly called the Antimafia Commission presented evidence at the Oratory on Wednesday, reviving hopes that the painting might still be found.CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times

In the ’60s, no major crime could occur in Palermo without the Mafia knowing about it. So it was natural that investigators looked to Mafia turncoats for clues. Many were interrogated over the years, and some had harrowing tales to tell. One said that the “Nativity” — whose dating flip-flops between 1600 and 1609, depending on which scholars you ask — had been burned in a fire. Another said it had been abandoned and subsequently eaten by mice, or by pigs. Yet another said it had been hidden and was only unveiled during Mafia boss summits. A mobster is said to have used it as a bedside rug.

It was enough to dishearten even the most dogged sleuth.

merlin_138963591_25b1215b-fadb-4ba0-9cb9-b2f99f7106a7-superJumbo — *Rosy Bindi, who leads the Antimafia Commission, in the Oratory of San Lorenzo. “If you find the right thread,” she said, “then everything follows.”CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times*

Then in May last year, yet another turncoat, Gaetano Grado, told his tale to an Italian parliamentary body commonly called the Antimafia Commission. Its president, Rosy Bindi, said in an interview that she had never been convinced by the rumors that swirled around the painting, and so the commission, which has an investigative mandate, decided to dig a little deeper.

Mr. Grado’s story has given investigators fresh hope.

According to this account, two days after the painting was taken, Gaetano Badalamenti, then one of the top Sicilian mobsters, asked Mr. Grado, who at the time was the Mafia member in charge of downtown Palermo, to look into the theft of the Caravaggio. The turncoat said that he tracked down the thieves, and that the painting, after passing through the hands of several mobsters, had eventually ended up with Mr. Badalamenti. (Mr. Badalamenti spent his last 17 years in a federal prison in the United States as one of the leaders of the so-called “pizza connection” drug trafficking ring. He died in 2004.)

Mr. Badalamenti invited a “very old” Swiss art dealer to see the Caravaggio, according to Mr. Grado. When the dealer laid eyes on it, he “sat and cried, and cried,” to the point that Mr. Badalamenti “thought he was stupid,” Mr. Grado recalled. Then the Swiss man announced that he would cut it into pieces because it would not sell otherwise. The dealer, who is not named in the evidence that has been made public, has since died, commission officials said.

Mr. Grado’s account checked out on various fronts. “He’s the first turncoat with a direct connection to the theft,” Francesco Comparone, the commission’s top councilor, said.

On Wednesday, Ms. Bindi said: “If you find the right thread, then everything follows. It’s clear that Grado was that thread.”

Not everyone, however, was convinced.

For the last 10 years, the Oratory where the theft took place has been managed by the Amici dei Musei Siciliani, a cultural association that promotes art in Palermo. On Wednesday, its president, Bernardo Tortorici di Raffadali, told the dignitaries attending the presentation of the Antimafia Commission’s findings, that he thought Mr. Grado’s story didn’t hold up.

He said that over the years, he had moved two altarpieces — including a high-tech digital copy — that had substituted for the missing Caravaggio “a dozen times.” It was “extremely complicated,” he said, because of the size, weight and position of the canvas above the altar.

merlin_138963471_69bab918-0c83-4c4f-a3b4-c3cc8c4796d7-superJumbo — *The original wooden frame of Caraveggio’s stolen “Nativity” hangs in a chapel adjacent the oratory where it was stolen.CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times*

An operation like this was not something that could be done on the spur of the moment and without a sizable crew, he added. He also pointed out that the thieves had cut the Caravaggio from its wooden frame “without leaving a milligram of paint behind.” It was done with “surgical precision,” Mr. Tortorici said.

“This theft was commissioned,” he said, adding that he didn’t think that line of investigation had been adequately pursued.

Ms. Bindi responded that the commission’s investigation found that the thieves that night “had been under the guidance of two experts in art thefts.” And while the commission found no indication that the Mafia had commissioned the theft, she added, “that doesn’t mean that it didn’t involve people who knew what they were doing.”

merlin_138963543_5b7f9b29-e028-4535-ae44-6dea4a4093dd-superJumbo — Ludovico Gippetto, the president of a Palermo cultural association called Exoart, in the organization’s offices. Mr. Gippetto said he has doubts about the Mafia’s involvement with the Caravaggio.CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times

Ludovico Gippetto, the president of a Palermo cultural association called Extroart, has also adopted Caravaggio’s “Nativity” for his project “Wanted,” a publicity campaign that involves periodically peppering Palermo with posters of looted artworks on the premise that the better known a work of art is, the harder it is to sell on the black market. In some cases, the strategy has worked, and the works have been anonymously returned. But not in the case of the “Nativity.”

Mr. Gippetto also has doubts about the Mafia’s involvement with the Caravaggio. He said that the daughter of one of the two sisters who were the custodians of the Oratory in 1969 told him that a second object — an item that has not been named in depositions — had also been stolen on the night of the theft, he said. “Why have the police never interrogated her?” he asked.

He’s also been told, “by a source,” that the theft was on commission for “a family so powerful that the police couldn’t even knock on their door,” he said during an interview. He declined to expand further, except to say that the family was not in Italy. “Of course,” he added, “it’s just a hypothesis.”

At least Mr. Grado’s revelations keep the search for the painting alive: The Antimafia Commission’s findings have convinced Palermo prosecutors to open a new investigation into the theft.

Lt. Col. Nicola Candido, the operations commander of the art theft squad in the Caribinieri, Italy’s military police, said that Mr. Grado’s revelations had offered new lines of investigation “involving international police forces,” but none from the United States. He declined to elaborate because investigations were ongoing.

One Caravaggio scholar said she was naturally thrilled that the “Nativity” could still come to light, but was dubious about turncoat accounts. “They haven’t been extraordinarily trustworthy,” Francesca Cappelletti, who teaches at the University of Ferrara, said.

But Ms. Bindi said that the turncoat’s new revelations offered the hope that at least a part of the painting could be recovered. “It would be a way of giving back to the city something that belonged to it,” she said.

Even with a high-quality copy in place, the lost painting leaves a void. In an interview on Wednesday, Leoluca Orlando, Palermo’s mayor, said, “To think that in this moment, this work, or part of this work, could be in someone’s home or a museum — that should upset everyone.”

What’s the motive for museum thefts?

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/whats-the-motive-for-museum-thefts/

2018-06-04_15-10-27

What’s the motive for museum thefts?

James Ratcliffe – May 30, 2018

Capture2 — *Gold reliquary containing Anne of Brittany’s heart. Photo: Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images*

Two recent museum thefts can be taken to illustrate the thinking behind such crimes. One, in Nantes, saw thieves snatch a 16th-century solid gold reliquary containing the preserved heart of a French queen from the Thomas-Dobrée museum. The other, in Bath, involved the theft of Chinese jade and gold from the Museum of East Asian Art.

The Nantes theft was carried out in the night between 13 and 14 April, with the thieves breaking in through a window. Although the loss of the heart of Anne of Brittany, which had only gone back on display on the Tuesday of the preceding week, attracted the majority of attention, the thieves also took a range of gold coins and medals and a gilt sculpture of a Hindu deity – the latter presumably in the mistaken belief that it too was gold. This theft appears to be a prime example of opportunism. The return to display of the reliquary presumably drew the attention of the thieves and they then took the first available opportunity to take it, and other items that appeared valuable to them at the same time. Little planning was presumably carried out if amongst their haul of gold was a gilt sculpture of far lower financial value. The fact that the reliquary was subsequently buried just outside Saint Nazaire (a nearby town), from where it was recovered after police were led to it following two arrests, indicates that it is unlikely that the thieves had thought beyond the initial ‘smash and grab’ element of their crime and had not considered how to dispose of their haul.

In contrast – although superficially similar in that the thieves broke in through a window during the early hours of the morning – the theft from the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath on 17 April appears to have been highly targeted. The pieces taken seem to have been selected based on their quality and cultural significance, rather than simply their material, which ranged from jade to soapstone to zitan wood, or obvious financial value. The thieves made their selection of objects rapidly and fled the scene in under five minutes before the police could arrive, indicating that significant planning must have gone into the robbery. Again in contrast to the Nantes theft, as yet it appears that none of the material stolen has been recovered, nor have any arrests been made.

This is not the first time that a European museum has suffered from what appears to be a targeted theft of Chinese material. Similar thefts have taken place over the last decade in Durham, at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, and at the Château de Fontainebleau. This kind of crime appears to be carried out with a specific view to then selling the pieces stolen to the Chinese market where it is relatively easy to find a buyer, and the chances of a piece being identified are far lower than if it were offered to the Western art market.

Sadly, museums are particularly vulnerable to targeted thefts such as this. Their very nature, with publicly listed catalogues of their collections (the full collection of the Museum of East Asian Art is available online), and outreach programs to ensure that people are aware of their existence and holdings, means that for those who are seeking particular types of item and are prepared to secure them through illicit means they are almost a shop window for criminals. It is essential that museums resist the temptation to keep their collections private, but their public nature does mean that it is also essential to factor in security when planning exhibitions, building works, and storage.

Equally, museums remain vulnerable to opportunistic theft of pieces on display such as appears to have been the case in Nantes. It is rare, but criminals see the pieces within museums as valuable, and thus worth stealing if an opportunity to do so arises. As in this case though, they rarely have a plan for how to turn that value into cash, and thus end up hiding the items when it becomes clear that they are not as easy to fence as they might have hoped.

Ultimately, for the general public, historians, and museums themselves, the outcomes of these thefts are often sadly indistinguishable: the loss of items integral to their collections. Tackling museum theft is dependent upon financial resources for security and policing, but for museums, especially those with lower budgets, an increased awareness of the types of items likely to be liable to targeted theft, and of the risks of opportunistic theft prompted by publicity, is well worth keeping in mind.

James Ratcliffe is director of recoveries & general counsel at the Art Loss Register, London.

Seven Priceless Historical Artifacts Destroyed by Humansry

http://www.realclearlife.com/history/seven-priceless-historical-artifacts-destroyed-by-humans/#1

Seven Priceless Historical Artifacts Destroyed by Humans

Vandals, terrorists, and people just making dumb decisions all affected the way we see history

Rebecca Gibian – May 19, 2018

All around the world, historical artifacts teach us about our past. But sometimes, on purpose or by accident, those relics are destroyed. We take a look at some of the most important treasures that were cut, toppled or hammered.

The Star-Spangled Banner Flag

One of the most treasured possessions of the Smithsonian Museum is the Star-Spangled Banner, which was one of the very first American flags to be made during the Revolutionary War. It was made with 15 stars, but now you will only find 14. After the war, Lt. Col. George Armistead took the huge 30-foot-by-42-foot flag home as a keepsake. When he and his wife died, it was passed down to their daughter, Georgiana Armistead. People asked her for fragments of the flag, so she cut it up with scissors and mailed it to whoever she thought was worthy. More than 200 square feet of the flag was removed before Smithsonian conservationists got to it in 1907.

Jewelry Heist

hesse-jewel-heist — A glittering array of evidence appears before the court-martial board in Frankfurt, Germany, where the three officers were tried in 1946. (National Archives)

For centuries, soldiers have helped themselves to the riches of their foes. In World War II, three U.S. Army officers pulled off one of the most lucrative wartime thefts in history. In October 1944, princes Wolfgang and Richard of Germany’s illustrious House of Hesse buried about $2.5 million (about $31 million today) worth of treasure. But then Frankfurt fell to U.S. forces and the Hesse family was moved into cottages outside the Kronberg Castle. Three officers found the stash and pried out all the precious stones and kept the gold and silver mountings as scrap. They mailed the loot back to the U.S. and then pawned some of the smaller pieces in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. They were caught, and court-martialed on charges of larceny, dereliction of duty, and “conduct unbecoming U.S. military officers.” All three served time in federal prison. More than half the jewels they stole are still lost.

8,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Artworks

hand-stencil — One of the destroyed handprints. (Courtesy of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center)

destruction-pic — Another destroyed stencil scratched out with a rock. (Courtesy of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center)

In Tasmania’s Nirmena Nala rock shelter, you will find a preserved set of stenciled handprints made by the ancestors of Australia’s Aboriginal people. The handprints withstood the test of time, but vandals destroyed them in mere minutes. Someone went into the shelters and scratched away the images with a rock to try and deface them.

Ancient Pyramid in Belize

pyramid2 — A backhoe in Belize destroyed one of the country’s largest Maya pyramids.

Belize has extensive Maya ruins, but a construction company destroyed one of the largest. The company was scooping stone out of the major pyramid at the site of Nohmul, one of only 15 ancient Maya sites important enough to be noted on the National Geographic World Atlas. Almost the entire pyramid, once over 60 feet tall, was destroyed by road building crews.

Looters Destroy Mummies

Mideast Egypt Protest Antiquities — In this photo taken early Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, and made available Monday, Jan. 31, parts of unidentified mummies are seen damaged on the floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt. Early Saturday morning, looters entered from the glass dome on the roof of the museum with ropes with the intention to loot antiquities. (AP Photo)

On Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, looters entered the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt with the hope of finding gold. The nine men broke into ten cases to take figurines. But none of them contained gold, so the looters dropped them and broke the items. They then took two skulls fo the 2,000-year-old mummies and fled. Several of the looters were detained but many irreplaceable artifacts were destroyed.

ISIS in Mosul

GettyImages-663766304-1200x797 — A member of the Iraqi forces inspects the damage inside the destroyed museum of Mosul on April 2, 2017, after they recaptured it from Islamic State (IS) group fighters.
Iraqi forces seized the museum from IS on March 7 as they pushed into west Mosul as part of a vast offensive to oust the jihadists from the northern city. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images)

Islamic State militants completely ransacked Mosul’s central museum and destroyed priceless artifacts, some of which dated back thousands of years. Some of the statues and artifacts dated back to the Assyrian and Akkadian empires. The terrorist group published a video of the destruction. In the video, an Isis representative condemns Assyrians and Akkadians as polytheists. The militants smashed the statues in the museum with hammers and pushed the remains to the ground so they shattered even more. ISIS has not just destroyed the museum, however, they have caused irreparable damage across Syria and Iraq since 2010.

The Amber Room

Bernsteinzimmer02 — The Amber Chamber, a full-size room made of Baltic amber cut into 20-odd panels of ornate baroque & rococo designs; the chamber was a gift for King Fredrick William I of Prussia to Russia’s Czar Peter the Great in the early 18th century but was stolen and hidden by Nazi Gov. of Prussia Erich Koch

The Amber Chamber, a full-size room made of Baltic amber cut into 20-odd panels of ornate baroque & rococo designs; the chamber was a gift for King Fredrick William I of Prussia to Russia’s Czar Peter the Great in the early 18th century but was stolen and hidden by Nazi Gov. of Prussia Erich Koch

The Amber Room was built for Peter the Great in 1717 and was literally a room made out of amber. It was considered to be the eighth wonder of the world. It was dismantled by Nazis in 1941, shipped to Germany and reinstalled in the Konigsberg Castle. But when the war was over, it was dismantled and never seen again. Recently, documents revealed that it was in the Knights’ Hall at Konigsberg Castle when it was burned down by Soviet soldiers.

Thief rides off into the sunset with artwork headed to Western Heritage Classic

http://ktxs.com/news/abilene/thief-rides-off-into-sunset-with-artwork-headed-to-western-heritage-classic

Thief rides off into the sunset with artwork headed to Western Heritage Classic

Jamie Burch – May 14th 2018

ABILENE, Texas — Abilene police are looking for a thief who rode off into the sunset with several pieces of western art worth more than $11,000.

Willie Harris and his wife were in town last weekend for the Western Heritage Classic.

Harris handmakes miniature versions of chuck wagons and stagecoaches.

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Between 11:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday, someone broke into his trailer. It was parked outside the Holiday Inn on West Lake Road, where they were staying for the night.

Harris said the thief broke the lock and took a miniature chuckwagon, two miniature Wells Fargo stagecoaches, and three miniature saddles.

The chuckwagons and coaches are 42-inches long and 10-inches wide. They’re designed to look like a scene from the wild west and all the moving pieces work like the wheels, doors and handbrakes. Each one takes about three months to complete.

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Harris said the thief is lucky that he did not hear the break-in or he would have handed out his own version of justice.

“I wouldn’t have shot em,” said Harris. “I would’ve killed them on the spot. They lucked out.”

Former Egyptian Museum official to be prosecuted for theft

https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/50100/Former-Egyptian-Museum-official-to-be-prosecuted-for-theft

Former Egyptian Museum official to be prosecuted for theft

Mustafa Marie – May. 15, 2018

936782366d64716253da0de8279a7024 — Sarcophaguses on display in Egyptian museum in Turin

Cairo – 15 May 2018: The Administrative Prosecution ordered the prosecution of the former head of the fifth department of the Egyptian Museum in the High Council of Antiques for allegations of theft of an antique.

The administrative prosecutors received a tip from the legal department in the High Council of Antiques that an ancient item weighing 22 grams of pure gold had been reported missing, after being portrayed in the hall No. 44 located on the ground floor of the Egyptian Museum.

Investigators charged the former official, who claimed her innocence and informed police that the item may have been lost during the chaos and political turmoil that the country witnessed in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution.

The item is still missing, but the Egyptian police are widely exerting their efforts to locate it.

The Egyptian police and prosecutors stressed the importance of properly handling precious antiques from Egypt’s ancient civilization because they are not just a great part of Egyptian history, but humanity as a whole.

Art Underworld: South Florida Becomes Hot Spot for Stolen, Fake Art

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Art-Underworld-South-Florida-Becomes-Hot-Spot-for-Stolen-Fake-Art-482411881.html

Art Underworld: South Florida Becomes Hot Spot for Stolen, Fake Art

May 12, 2018

Art

The underground art world is thriving with pieces from all different countries getting smuggled into the United States. South Florida has become a hot spot for stolen art, according to federal agents.

Hialeah artist Abel Quintero is aware of this growing black market of art, that’s why he takes an extra step to protect his works of art.

“I sign and use my own thumbprint,” Quintero explained. He marks his contemporary art pieces with his own thumbprint to avoid the spread of fakes. The rising number of fakes and forgeries has worsened with technology. This has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to train its agents to detect bogus artworks that try to pass as the real thing.

“Frankly, I think Miami is a big risk. There is a serious, strong art community here. Any place where you have galleries, museums…I think you’ll probably see a larger amount of the underground art market,” explained Special Agent in Charge Mark Selby, Homeland Security Investigations.

Russ Kodner, the owner of Kodner Galleries in Dania Beach, is always on the lookout for fakes.

“There are people that walk through our doors every day, bringing items to get appraised, bringing in items to get converted into cash and a lot of times we turn them away,” Kodner explained.

Art and cultural property crime — which includes theft, fraud, looting, and trafficking — have estimated losses in the billions of dollars annually. At one point, the federal government said it’s the third highest-grossing criminal trade behind drugs and guns. Into Custody at Florida Airport

Thieves also smuggle in historical artifacts stolen from other countries.

Homeland Security officials said they have been able to find and return more than 8,000 stolen items in the last 10 years. Thieves are taking precious items, Agent Selby said. Earlier this year, someone at Miami International Airport tried to smuggle a Corinthian helmet which dates back to 500 B.C.

“There’s a lot of history that’s being stolen from countries all over the world. A lot of it ends up here in the United States,” said Agent Selby. “Once they remove those items, they haven’t had a chance to be studied where they were found. It’s lost forever. There’s no way you can get it back.”

These Art Museums Were the Sites of Dramatic Heists

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/lists/visit-museums-art-heists-forgeries-louvre-gardner-montreal/

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These Art Museums Were the Sites of Dramatic Heists

Rachel Brown

If you’ve got a taste for unsolved mysteries and criminal capers, here are five world-class museums to visit.

The depth of a da Vinci. The luminance of a Vermeer. The vibrancy of a van Gogh. They’ve shaped the canon of Western art—and they’ve all been the center of sensational art thefts.

Though high-profile heists may seem the stuff of movies, art crime is actually a multi-billion-dollar business that often doubles as a money laundering front for international terrorist or organized crime groups.

To get a taste of the drama without the danger, visit these world-class museums that have been the site of art heists—some still unsolved.

THE LOUVRE

louvre-paris-france.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT HARDING PICTURE LIBRARY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE – The Louvre’s main entrance is illuminated at night. The world’s biggest art museum, the Louvre was robbed in 1911 when museum security was much laxer.

It might be hard to imagine a time before the Mona Lisa smiled enigmatically from a million souvenir mugs and pop culture references, but Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century masterpiece wasn’t always quite so famous. In fact, its 1911 theft from Paris’s Louvre Museum—and the well-publicized search that ensued—is largely responsible for its current notoriety.

The Louvre had hired handyman Vincenzo Peruggia to install protective glass cases over paintings including the Mona Lisa. Instead, he hid overnight in a closet and walked out of the door the next morning with the stolen painting under his smock. Despite being interviewed twice by police during the course of their investigation, Peruggia was not caught until 1913, when he tried to sell the painting to a Florentine art dealer.

mona-lisa-louvre.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY PIERRE ADENIS, LAIF/REDUX – Arguably the world’s most famous work of art, the ”Mona Lisa” is now displayed behind thick plexiglass and a wooden barrier to protect it from the 15,000 visitors who flock to the Louvre each day.

Today, the Mona Lisa is the main attraction at the world’s largest and most visited art museum. About 15,000 people visit the Louvre each day, so plan ahead. The museum recommends booking tickets in advance (though admission is free on the first Sunday of every month from October through March). If you’re looking to spot the Mona Lisa or other famous works, consider arriving before the museum opens to get a good spot in line—or choose to spend your time exploring the many amazing works that often go overlooked.

MONTREAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

montreal-museum-of-fine-arts.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID GIRAL, ALAMY – The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was, in 1972, the site of the ”Skylight Caper:” Armed thieves rappelled through a skylight and made off with $2 million worth of paintings and jewelry.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has twice been robbed. In September 2011, and again in October, an unidentified thief stole two small stone sculptures which had been displayed without protective cases. One, a 2,500-year-old sandstone carving, was worth around $1 million—and turned up two years later in the home of an unsuspecting yoga instructor, who had bought it for $1,000. The other sculpture remains missing.

But the more dramatic of the two crimes was a 1972 midnight heist in which three armed robbers rappelled through a skylight, overpowered and tied up three guards, then made off on foot with 50 artworks, among them 18 renowned paintings.

The ensuing investigation—full of cryptic pay-phone messages, suspected ties to terrorists and organized crime, and a failed $10,000 ransom—is still unsolved. The “Skylight Caper” is Canada’s largest art theft: Initial losses were estimated at $2 million, though some art historians have estimated that the stolen paintings, including a Rembrandt, have since appreciated in value.

montreal-museum-of-fine-art-heist.adapt.676.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE, GETTY IMAGES – The MMFA’s then-Director of Public Relations examines photos of the 18 paintings stolen in the 1972 heist. Due to the dramatic method of entry, police suspected the thieves were experienced members of an international crime ring.

Despite the absence of its most famous items, the MMFA retains a collection of nearly 50,000 works. Located in Montreal’s historic downtown, the striking building doesn’t have a parking lot, so consider taking advantage of nearby public transportation.

MOHAMMED MAHMOUD KHALIL MUSEUM

mohammed-mahmoud-khalil-museum.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY KHALED DESOUKI, AFP/GETTY IMAGES – Named for a former Prime Minister of Egypt, the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo, Egypt—notable for its collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works—was robbed in 1978 and 2010.

Cairo’s Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum is another victim of double thefts—but in this case, of the same painting, a single-square-foot still life of poppy flowers painted by Vincent van Gogh.

van-gogh-poppy-flowers.adapt.710.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY ART COLLECTION 2, ALAMY – Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh’s ”Poppy Flowers,” also known as ”Vase and Flowers,” was stolen twice from the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum. Worth at least $50 million, it remains missing.

The work was first stolen in 1978 but was found two years later in Kuwait (though details of the case remain scarce). In 2010, the painting was cut from its frame, and though Egyptian officials erroneously announced its recovery hours later, the $50 million ”Poppy Flowers” remains missing. An inspection of the museum revealed that only seven security cameras and none of the fifty alarms were working, and 11 culture ministry employees were found guilty of negligence.

One of Egypt’s best museums, the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum’s collection includes works by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists such as Auguste Renoir and Paul Gaugin. Round out any trip to Cairo with a visit to the museum, located on the banks of the Nile River a half hour’s drive from the Great Pyramids of Giza.

ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM

isabella-stewart-gardner-museum.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID L RYAN, THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY IMAGES – Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is known as a “palace turned inside out” because of its beautiful courtyard. In 1990, the Gardner was robbed of 13 paintings worth a collective $500 million, the largest property theft in history.

The 1990 Gardner Museum robbery is the granddaddy of the bunch. The 13 stolen works, including pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet, are worth a combined half-billion dollars, making it the single largest property theft in history.

At 1:24 in the morning on March 18, two men disguised as police officers—one with a wax moustache—buzzed at the door of the celebrated Boston museum, claiming they were responding to a disturbance. Once the security guard let them in, they handcuffed him and the other officer on duty. They spent the next 81 minutes collecting their loot, even making two trips to the car.

Though still being actively investigated, the case is unsolved—and no less dramatic than the original theft. After 38 years of disappearing evidence, ransom letters, coded messages in The Boston Globe, and midnight trips to warehouses have turned up no sign of the missing works, the reward for information leading to all the paintings’ safe return has been raised to $10 million.

isabella-gardner-heist.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY M. SCOTT BRAUER, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX – An empty frame marks the spot where Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” once hung in the Gardner. Vermeer’s “The Concert,” another painting stolen in the 1990 heist, is the world’s most expensive missing work of art, valued at over $200 million.

To mark the paintings’ absence—and await their hopeful return—the Gardner still displays the empty frames, a favorite shot for Instagramming visitors. Its world-renowned collection of historic and contemporary art is housed in a beautiful mansion in Boston’s Back Bay and its delightfully active Twitter feed shares information about programs and performances.

MUSEUM OF ART FAKES

museum-of-fake-art.adapt.1900.1 PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF ART FAKES – Vienna’s Fälscher museum (in English, the Museum of Art Fakes) displays forgeries of famous masterworks.

Vienna’s Fälscher museum has never been the scene of a crime. But on its walls hang works that, with the slightest change in attribution, would be crimes themselves.

Opened in 2005 to celebrate the odd history of forgery (and educate the public on how fraud can be stopped), the Museum of Art Fakes houses over 80 works by famous forgers like Han van Meegeren, whose imitation of Vermeer was once considered one of the Dutch master’s greatest pieces. Rembrandt, Picasso, and Matisse are some of the other heavyweights whose works inspired the imitations found here.

van-meegeren-fake-vermeer.adapt.885.1 PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL FEARN, ALAMY – “The Procuress,” believed to be a forgery by Han van Meegeren, is one of the famous phonies on the walls of the Museum of Art Fakes.

Visitors to the tiny museum can try to spot telltale signs and “time bombs,” clues that a work isn’t what it seems. Just blocks from the Danube River, the museum can be found near the Hundertwasser House, an architectural oddity popular with tourists.