Category Archives: Art theft

Egyptian queen’s 673-diamond necklace stolen in Vienna smash-and-grab raid

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Police hunt two suspects after historic 200-carat piece is snatched from Austrian museum during opening hours

Austrian police are hunting two men alleged to have stolen a 200-carat platinum necklace encrusted with 673 diamonds that was on loan to a museum in Vienna and once belonged to Egyptian royalty.

Authorities in the capital released pictures of the suspects captured by security cameras during the heist at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), amid a rash of spectacular smash-and-grab thefts from European cultural institutions.

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Bronze age treasure stolen in four-minute Spanish museum heist

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Gold collection known as Treasure of Villena, worth at least €1.7m, is target of ‘very well planned’ raid

Thieves in Spain have raided the Treasure of Villena – a stunning collection of bronze age gold artefacts that has been described as the most important prehistoric trove in Europe – in the latest high-profile smash-and-grab heist on the continent.

The raid on Thursday morning of the 66 mostly gold objects in the Spanish town of Villena lasted just minutes, officials said.

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Picasso print stolen from Milwaukee art gallery in 2018 found by landlord while cleaning apartment

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Torero print, one of 30 known to exist signed by Picasso, was stolen from Bill DeLind’s gallery in 2018

Bill DeLind thought the Picasso print that was stolen from his Milwaukee gallery in 2018 was gone forever. But then police called last week and asked him to look at an artwork that a local landlord found while cleaning out a vacant apartment.

DeLind immediately recognized the stolen Torero print, one of 30 known to exist signed by Picasso.

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‘It’s amazing’: stolen 2,500-year-old Romanian gold helmet has been found

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Priceless artefact snatched in Netherlands museum heist has been recovered, ending international search

A priceless gold 2,500-year-old helmet from Romania, stolen last year in the Netherlands, has been recovered, according to a Dutch art detective.

“It’s amazing. It’s the best news we could have got,” Arthur Brand said on Thursday, confirming that the Helmet of Coțofenești had been found.

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Norfolk woman hands over 16th-century painting identified as stolen 50 years ago

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Exclusive: Barbara de Dozsa had argued ownership because work by Italian artist Solario had been bought in good faith

A 16th-century Madonna and Child painting that ended up with a woman in Norfolk after it was stolen from a museum in Italy half a century ago is to be returned to its rightful owner.

After years of soul-searching, and persuading by an art lawyer who was acting pro bono, Barbara de Dozsa decided to hand it over to the Civic Museum of Belluno, which last saw the painting in 1973.

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Greek vase ‘looted’ in Italy removed from sale by London gallery

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Contact from the Observer prompts withdrawal as dealers urged to do more to stop illicit trade in antiquities

A London antiquities dealer has withdrawn an ancient Greek amphora from sale after evidence arose that links it to a notorious smuggler.

The Kallos Gallery in Mayfair, London, has removed a black-figure amphora – a jar with two handles and a narrow neck made around 550BC – from sale after the Observer contacted it about concerns raised by an expert in the illegal trade of antiquities.

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Armed gang steal jewels from French museum’s £6m ‘national treasure’

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Thieves fired shots and took parts of 1904 work by goldsmith Joseph Chaumet from Hiéron Museum

Armed robbers snatched jewels worth millions from a work by the famed Parisian goldsmith Joseph Chaumet classed as a national treasure, in a brazen heist at a French museum.

The thieves arrived on motorbikes at the Hiéron Museum in Paray-le-Monial, in central France, at about 4pm local time on Thursday. Three entered the building and one stood guard outside, said the local mayor, Jean-Marc Nesme.

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Huge crime network forging Banksy, Warhol and Picasso uncovered in Italy

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Art police and Pisa prosecutor say 38 people being investigated, with about 2,100 fake artworks seized

Italian police have dismantled a Europe-wide forgery network suspected of producing sophisticated replicas of works by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.

Thirty-eight people had been placed under investigation in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks, Italy’s art police and Pisa’s prosecutor’s office said in a joint statement on Monday.

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Storied Titian painting found at London bus stop after theft goes to auction

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Work by 16th century master is expected to fetch between £15m and £25m when it goes on sale at Christie’s

A highly coveted painting by the Renaissance master Titian that was stolen in 1809 then again in 1995 – after which it was discovered in a plastic bag at a London bus stop – is being put up for auction in July.

The Venetian painter is believed to have created Rest on the Flight into Egypt in 1508 when he was barely 20. Painted on a 2ft wide wooden panel, the painting depicts the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus as an infant with Joseph looking on.

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Spanish police recover Francis Bacon painting worth €5m

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Two people arrested over theft of José Capelo portraits in Madrid in 2015 – one of which is still missing

Police in Madrid have recovered a portrait by Francis Bacon, valued at €5m (£4.3m), which was one of five works by the famously thirsty and hell-raising artist that were stolen from the home of the painting’s subject almost a decade ago.

The pictures, whose total value has been put at €25m, disappeared in 2015 after a break-in at the Madrid home of José Capelo, a Spanish banker and close friend of Bacon who sat for the painter.

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Gold statues and jewellery stolen in €1m heist at museum by Lake Garda

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Items by Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni taken from exhibition at Vittoriale degli Italiani estate

Gold statues and jewellery made by the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni have been stolen from an exhibition in northern Italy in a €1m (£850,000) heist.

The 20 gold statues and 30 pieces of jewellery were crafted between the 1950s and 1990s by the artist, who was the uncle of La Dolce Vita film star Marcello Mastroianni.

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Italian minister investigated over alleged art theft quits

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Vittorio Sgarbi, who denies allegations over painting, cites separate antitrust investigation in resignation

An Italian art critic who was recently placed under investigation over allegations that a 17th-century painting in his possession was stolen from a castle more than a decade ago has resigned as a junior culture minister.

“I am resigning with immediate effect as undersecretary of the government and will inform [the prime minister, Giorgia] Meloni in the next few hours,” Vittorio Sgarbi said on the sidelines of a conference in Milan.

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‘A little bit cursed’: how stolen Van Gogh was a ‘headache’ for the criminal world

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‘Indiana Jones of art world’ traces lost artwork seized from museum during Covid lockdown

It was a masterpiece with a curse: an early Van Gogh worth €3m-€6m (£2.6m-£5.2m) stolen from a Dutch museum three years ago was being passed around the criminal world like a hot potato, according to art detective Arthur Brand.

“We knew that the painting would go from one hand to another hand in the criminal world, but that nobody really wanted to touch it because it wasn’t worth anything,” said Brand, who is known for retrieving stolen artworks. “You could only get in trouble. So it was a little bit cursed.”

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Three convicted after Met police sting operation recovers £2m Ming vase

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Detective from force’s specialist crime unit says cross-border operation was the result of four years’ work

Three men have been convicted after a £2m vase stolen from a museum was recovered in a police sting operation.

The Chinese Ming dynasty vase was stolen from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva, in Switzerland in June 2019. Three men plotted to sell it on for hundreds of thousands of pounds, but were caught in a Scotland Yard operation.

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Fears looted Nazi art still hanging in Belgian and British galleries

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Leading art museums are reassessing their works after a Belgian journalist traced how a fascist sympathiser acquired a Jewish dealer’s collection

In August 1940, Samuel Hartveld and his wife, Clara Meiboom, boarded the SS Exeter ocean liner in Lisbon, bound for New York. Aged 62, Hartveld, a successful Jewish art dealer, left a world behind. The couple had fled their home city of Antwerp not long before the Nazi invasion of Belgium in May 1940, parting with their 23-year-old son, Adelin, who had decided to join the resistance.

Hartveld also said goodbye to a flourishing gallery in a fine art deco building in the Flemish capital, a rich library and more than 60 paintings. The couple survived the war, but Adelin was killed in January 1942. Hartveld was never reunited with his paintings, which were snapped up at a bargain-basement price by a Nazi sympathiser and today are scattered throughout galleries in north-western Europe, including Tate Britain.

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‘It’s about ethics’: Nigeria urges British Museum to follow US and repatriate bronzes

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Culture minister says UK institution ‘should learn from what has happened’ as Smithsonian returns 29 Benin artefacts

The culture minister of Nigeria has urged the British Museum to follow the example of the Smithsonian Institution, which on Tuesday returned ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria at a celebratory event in Washington.

Lai Mohammed praised the move by the US National Museum of African Art, which follows a recent restitution agreement with Germany that included the handover of two Benin bronzes. Last year, Mohammed’s ministry formally requested the return of Benin artefacts from the British Museum in London.

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Eight convicted over theft of Banksy artwork from Paris attack site

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Work paying homage to victims of 2015 attack – painted on door at Bataclan concert hall – was stolen in 2019

A French court has convicted eight men for the theft and handling of a Banksy painting paying homage to the victims of the 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.

Three men in their 30s who admitted to the 2019 theft were given prison sentences, one of four years and two of three, although they will be able to serve them wearing electronic tracking bracelets rather than behind bars.

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Final piece of 17th-century tapestry stolen 42 years ago found by Spanish police

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Flemish work taken by notorious art thief ‘Erik the Belgian’ tracked down by officer doing academic research on art thefts

Spanish police have recovered the final piece of a 17th-century tapestry that was stolen 42 years ago by a notorious art thief.

The 4-metre by 6.5-metre tapestry, known as La apoteosis de las artes (The Apotheosis of the Arts), was one of six Flemish tapestries taken from the church of Santo Domingo in the town of Castrojeriz in northern Spain, in the early hours of 7 November 1980.

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Retrieved after decades: the painting supposedly ‘bought’ by the Nazis

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A new book recounts one woman’s struggle to find looted art – and then convince a major museum to give it back

Fresh proof that the Nazis set up fake auctions and phoney paperwork to disguise their looting of art and valuable possessions has been uncovered by an amateur sleuth researching her own family mystery.

French writer Pauline Baer de Perignon’s investigation has revealed the fate of a missing collection of art that included work by Monet, Renoir and Degas and also exposed the reluctance of Europe’s leading museums to accept evidence of the deceit.

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Italian TV employees suspected of thieving dozens of works of art

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‘Priceless’ pieces removed from Rai’s offices by employees and replaced with fakes, police believe

“Disloyal employees” at Italy’s public broadcaster, Rai, are suspects in the theft of dozens of works of art from its offices thought to date back to the 1970s.

In what the daily newspaper Il Messaggero has described as “the sack of Rai”, the “priceless” artworks were removed from the broadcaster’s headquarters in Rome and units across the country and replaced with fakes. The works included original paintings by Renato Guttuso and etchings by Claude Monet and Amedeo Modigliani.

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