art theft

The Case of the Missing Painting

Filed under: Art

The case of the missing masterpiece more closely resembles a spoof of a whodunit, such as Murder by Death, than real life.

According to a lawsuit filed on August 30 by Kristin Trudgeon, a painting she co-owned, "Portrait of a Girl" by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot worth an estimated $1.35 million, was entrusted to James Carl Haggerty and never returned after he showed it to a prospective buyer.

According to court documents, the prospective buyer, Offer Waterman, and Haggerty, met at the office belonging to the painting's co-owner, Tom Doyle, in order to inspect the painting. Doyle later met Haggerty at Rue 57, a restaurant on the upper east side of Manhattan where Doyle handed the painting over to Haggerty. Doyle instructed Haggerty to take the painting to the Mark Hotel where the prospective buyer further inspected the painting with a black light. While Haggerty and the prospective buyer met at the hotel bar, the painting was left at the hotel's front desk. Security cameras at the hotel recorded Haggerty leaving the bar, collecting the painting from the front desk, and exiting the Mark Hotel at 12:50 a.m.

Tags: art theft, jean baptiste camille corot, Portrait of a Girl

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$50 Million Van Gogh Stolen, Again

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Crimes and Misdemeanors

Not too many paintings get stolen twice from the same museum. A painting of a vase of flowers by Vincent van Gogh was stolen for the second time recently from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo, Egypt. The AP reports that the painting was also stolen in 1978 and was recovered two years later in Kuwait. The painting is worth a lot more now, an estimated $50 million. The painting known as both "Poppy Flowers" and "Vase and Flowers," was cut from the frame. Egypt's top prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud has said that none of the alarms and only a handful of surveillance cameras were working when the painting was stolen. On Sunday, Egypt's culture minister, Farouk Hosni, announced that the painting had been recovered but later it was reported that the painting is still among the missing.

The small one-foot-by-one-foot painting is similar to a flower scene painted by the French artist Adolphe Monticelli and the Monticelli painting also is part of the Khalil collection. It is believed the van Gogh was painted in 1887, during the phase of rapid productivity that marked the years before his suicide in 1890.

Tags: art theft, cairo, egypt, mahmoud khalil museum, poppy flowers, van gogh, vase and flowers, vincent van gogh

Picasso Among Works of Art Stolen from Paris Art Museum

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

A valuable Pablo Picasso painting was stolen early this morning from the Paris Museum of Modern Art by a masked thief. The robber also stole four other important works of art with total value estimated to be somewhere between $120 million and $616 million, according to Paris enforcement officials.

The stolen works of art that were cut from their frames include Picasso's The Pigeon with the Peas, Amedeo Modigliani's Woman with a Fan, Georges Braque's Olive Tree near Estaque, Henri Matisse's Pastoral and Fernand Leger's Still Life with Chandeliers.

Indeed, a similar theft took place in 1990 at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The 13 stolen works of art that were cut from their frames have yet to be recovered. The museum is offering a reward of $5 million for information leading to the recovery of the missing works in good condition.

The theft comes only a few weeks after Picasso's 1932 masterpiece, "Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust" was sold for $106.5 million, a world record auction price for any work of art. The painting, which was from the collection of Mrs. Sidney F. Brody, was sold by Christies New York.

Tags: art, art theft, Christies, france, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, paris, Picasso, theft

Degas Painting Lifted From French Museum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Crimes and Misdemeanors

2009 ended with a little art theft in France. On Thursday, a Degas painting, Les Choristes was stolen from the Cantini Museum in Marselle. The AP reports that the painting is worth around $1.15 million and was on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. The small pastel painting was painted in 1876-77 and depicts choral singers. A security guard discovered that the painting was missing but no other details are known yet. Degas works have been a target before, one was stolen during a major heist in 2008.

Tags: art theft, ArtTheft, cantini, degas

Picasso Notebook Swiped From Paris Museum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

A sketchbook full of crayon drawings by Pablo Picasso has been stolen from the Picasso National Museum in Paris. The notebook contains 32 drawings and is estimated to be worth between $8.4 million and $14 million. The drawings are dated 1917 to 1924. The sketchbook was stolen from the first-floor exhibition room and noticed to be missing just before lunchtime on Tuesday. The independent says that there were no signs of a break-in and the alarm system did not go off.

The 6 inch by 9 inch pad was kept in a high security glass cabinet which could only be opened with a special key but there is some question of whether or not the lock was broken. There were no security TV cameras. A special exhibit of the works of Daniel Buren which is being shown in the museum includes a giant mirror that may have blocked the view of the staff.

The museum is located in the Hotel Sale townhouse which has been under renovation for the last couple of years. Many of the museum's major Picasso works are currently away on loan to raise money for the renovations which is why exhibits by other artists are being shown in the museum. Paris police have said it looks to be a well-organized theft and that the works would be hard to sell on the open market. One thing that concerns me is the possibility that the sketches could be broken up and sold individually on the black market.

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Tags: art, art theft, ArtTheft, pablo picasso, PabloPicasso, paris, picasso national museum, PicassoNationalMuseum

Dali Swiped From Dutch Digs

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Armed robbers absconded with two paintings from the Scheringa Museum for Realist Art in Spanbroek last Friday. One of them was a piece by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. An exact number of thieves was not reported, but they were "several," and they wore masks. Walking into this museum with guns, they threatened the museum staff and dashed off wit the prize.

Driving off in a little black car, the art bandits left with "Adolescence," painted by Dali in 1941, and "La Musicienne," by Polish art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka (1929). Both paintings ~~are~~ were owned by the museum.

If you have a taste for Dali, look for the fence. Just don't get caught!

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Tags: amsterdam, art, art theft, artist, ArtTheft, dali, netherlands, salvador dali, SalvadorDali, surreal, surrealism, surrealist

Stolen Caravaggio Painting Found

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Often when paintings are stolen they never are seen again but this Caravaggio painting,Taking of Christ, or the Kiss of Judas , has been found. The painting had been stolen from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Black Sea port of Odessa last July. Thieves bypassed the alarm system, removed a window pane and took the work from its frame, according to Art Daily. The finding of the painting was revealed by sources close to the Ministry of the Interior in Ukraine.

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Tags: art, art theft, ArtTheft, caravaggio, painting

$200,000 Offered For Stolen Artwork

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

If you've seen any of the nine missing paintings shown above you could earn yourself a $200,000 reward. These paintings were stolen during a home robbery in Encino, California at the end of August while the elderly owners were in a back room. The thief stole paintings including Marc Chagall's "Les Paysans," Diego Rivera's "Mexican Peasant," and Arshile Gorky's "Cubist Still Life," a total of at least a dozen artworks in less than one hour. The Los Angeles police have announced a $200,000 reward for information leading to the paintings' return. But, as the L.A. Times reports, it is unknown where the money came from, only that it was not a government source.

Each painting is worth at least six figures with some worth over $1 million. If the thief doesn't know exactly what they have it may show up on the market soon at a pawn shop or other places but a more savvy thief might be willing to wait a while and then quietly slip it onto the market in another part of the country or overseas. The pieces have been registered in the Art Loss Register and in the FBI and Interpol stolen art files so anyone who does their homework should be able to know what they are getting. However, the networks to sell stolen art are elaborate and secretive and many pieces are not recovered. Often if a piece is not recovered quickly it can disappear for many years or even permanently.

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Tags: art, art theft, ArtTheft, diego rivera, DiegoRivera, encino, marc chagall, MarcChagall

Julian Radcliffe and the Art Loss Register Keep a Sharp Eye on Stolen Art

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Julian G.Y. Radcliffe has the type of job that a lends itself to a novel writer's flights of fancy. He is the founder and chairman of Art Loss Register, a database that tracks stolen art. Forbes profiles the gentleman with the interesting career whose database of pilfered paintings, jewelry, sculpture, watches and antiques lists around 180,000 objects. Radcliffe relives his biggest score, helping to recover Cézanne's "Bouilloire et fruits," which was later sold at auction for around $30 million. Radcliffe persuaded the holder of the Cézanne and six stolen other artworks to return the Cezanne in a deal that let him keep the other artworks (worth around $1 million).

When things go missing, people come to Radcliffe and the Art Loss Register. For a small registration fee and sometimes a contract that includes some fairly steep recovery fees (20% of the value of the missing object), Radcliffe and his 30 employees are on the case. The Art Loss Register is paid by 40 auction houses to run artwork through their database before upcoming auctions (Sotheby's, Christie's and four other auction houses put up some of the money to start the company). For individuals, the company charges a $40 fee per inquiry.

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Tags: art, art loss register, art theft, expire-images:2008-12-8, julian radcliffe, JulianRadcliffe, stolen art