4 ms·

I would have thought that art theft looked a lot like high-end auto theft - where the cars are stolen in the high “rule of law” countries and sold in low “rule

• GuB-42 8y ago
  Even high-end cars are made in series. Fine art is usually unique. It means you can show off in your stolen Ferrari an not raise too much suspicion, because there are plenty of cars just like yours that are not stolen. However, if you show off with a unique art piece, people who know about the theft will immediately recognize it as what it is. You will also get a lot more people pissed off. By stealing a Ferrari, essentially, the only person who is going to get pissed off is the original owner. Steal fine art and you have all the art community against you, and some of them may be influential even in your shithole country.
  • cascom 8y ago
    That’s a very fair point - and while with exception of lithographs, photography, etc. most art really is unique, but there are loads of artists whose art, while unique, would be hard to identify as a stolen to us layman - for example Monet painted ~250 paintings of water lilies alone, many of which trade hands in private sales, if for some reason I were to be at a Nigerian central banker’s home and he and a Monet water lilies was on the wall, I would have no idea if that was one of the stolen ones (or a fake for that matter)