6 ms·

Stolen masterpieces that are still missing

113 points by Tomte 3y ago

brink 3y ago
Interestingly, the Mona Lisa wasn't considered to be anything special until after it was stolen. It was the headlines and the frenzy surrounding the news that caused it to be so popular once it was found. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/30/138800110/the-theft-that-made-the-mona-lisa-a-masterpiece https://www.npr.org/2011/07/30/138800110/the-theft-that-made...
- m3kw9 3y ago
  Rarity is like an illusion
  - kibwen 3y ago
    Not even rarity, because every painting is basically unique and non-fungible (modulo replicas). Instead, it's memes that make unique things more valuable than other unique things.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      Paintings are unique the way people are unique. Each one is different but there are a LOT of them. Some are objectively in another league, but 99% of it can be swapped out for something that appeals to you more personally. Memes don't make a Rembrandt valuable, but equally the Rembrandt name matters more than the picture. So more "branding" than meme. I subscribe to the notion that if it takes an expert to tell the difference between a fake or real Rembrandt, then (value aside) you have a Rembrandt. Or Rembrandt-quality painting.
      - kibwen 3y ago
        > So more "branding" than meme. Agreed, but it's worth examining how branding is itself memetic. Why is Rembrandt associated with value? Because of a perpetuating idea that Rembrandt was highly skilled, and thus his paintings are higher quality. But why do we say that Rembrandt was highly skilled? Because of a perpetuating idea that tells us what skill at classical painting should look like, and then a perpetuating idea that tells us that Rembrandt was an exemplar of that artificially-defined category.
        cubefox 3y ago
        It seems more likely that Rembrandt defied some of the standard art style at the time and is remembered for his innovation. For example, his paintings look quite realistic but tend to exhibit unusually dramatic lighting. Perhaps nobody did that before him, or not with the same quality, or only in a small number of artworks.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      I like the concept of Mana - https://medium.com/luminasticity/art-as-a-tool-for-storing-mana-69d90f1a014b https://medium.com/luminasticity/art-as-a-tool-for-storing-m... (the link might not be to your taste as it is sort of criticism but written in a fictional universe) "One of the primary properties of anything with Mana is a feeling of uniqueness. That one has never encountered something like this before, and therefore it is important. The uniqueness of the thing is a property that pulls you in to focus more closely, to attempt to understand more closely why the thing is unique."
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      It is like having a Bob Ross painting. Which is surprisingly actually decently difficult to do as he kept most of them even though he made thousands of them. They are mostly in a Bob Ross museum. But 100 years from now? Without that show and the people who grew up watching it? Will they be worth anything?
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
  Those of us that don't know anything about art still don't consider it anything special. I wouldn't even put it on a wall at home. Looks crusty, for one.
  - vsnf 3y ago
    Meanwhile, there are works of immeasurably lesser technical talent hanging on my walls that I spend much time admiring. Good art is good art, and it's best to not let anyone tell you what that means or doesn't mean.
    - onionisafruit 3y ago
      My favorite painting is by my wife’s grandmother’s childhood neighbor who only showed one painting in her life (circa 1963). I’m sure that an art critic would tear it to pieces, but to me it’s beautiful. I feel lucky to have it in my house. It’s starting to deteriorate and I need to find somebody to restore it, but I don’t want to entrust it to anybody I can afford.
      - Projectiboga 3y ago
        Make it a hobby project. First to figure out is what is it on and then the paint type. From there you can research how to maybe restore and to preserve and slow or stop the degradation. Find books use AnnasArchive if they aren't in your library after researching books about restoration and preservation.
        onionisafruit 3y ago
        You don't know how unhandy I am. I would not be able to DIY this without making it worse, but today I contacted a restorer to at least find out what it will take. I assume that it will be multiple thousands of dollars, but have never even verified that assumption.
    - bch 3y ago
      I think it was the director of the Art Gallery of Ontario talking about “art” in an interview who said (roughly) “Art is the match - your mind is the cigar”.
- keiferski 3y ago
  It was still a painting by one of the most renowned artists and individuals of all time. Maybe it wasn’t the mega-hit that it is today, but “not anything special” isn’t accurate either.
- e4325f 3y ago
  Yes it was. It's a masterpiece by one of the greatest artists of all time. There's a Great Art Explained episode [1] on it that's worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElWG0_kjy_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElWG0_kjy_Y
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    There are other works by Da Vinci in other museums too but again the Mona Lisa had become uniquely and superlatively special over his other works, and indeed, all other works of art.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      This reminds me of Stanisław Lem's literature theory / theory of everything monograph The Philosophy of Chance [1]. One of the many claims defended in the book was that which works ultimately become famous art depends to a great degree on random chance. The Mona Lisa is an unusually clear example. It doesn't even stand out among da Vinci's other paintings. Another example is music. Whether a piece becomes famous, isn't just influenced by whether it sound good. It also has to hit a specific nerve in the current zeitgeist. If the best House track of all time came out tomorrow, nobody would notice, because the genre isn't popular anymore. The artwork has to be at the right place at the right time, or it will be forgotten by history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Chance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Chance
    - pluc 3y ago
      Eh, I think it caught on because it's simple to describe. Da Vinci's other pieces in the Uffizi are a lot more elaborate and can't be summed up by "portrait with a smile". People like simple.
    - Smoosh 3y ago
      Yes, I prefer "Woman with a ferret[1]" myself. A better work in almost every way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_an_Ermine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_an_Ermine
jmyeet 3y ago
Stealing renowned art like this is an interesting phenomenon as it becomes largely impossible to ever display it or claim it let alone sell it. There are some cases whre the motive doesn't seem to be theft for the black market (eg the ransom case mentioned). So the psychology is that someone with a lot of money wants to pay to take an artwork and put it in a vault, never displaying it. So the reward is to know something other people don't (ie the art's location) and to exert power over people by denying them the ability to see that art. That paints what seems to be a fairly accurate psychological profile of the ultra-wealthy as a whole. The other side of art theft is looting, usually in war and particularly by the Nazis in WW2. The interesting part of this one is how the art and auction world enabled and profited off this trade where they willingly participated in the resale of stolen artwork even though there's clear provenance back to the original owners that no one involved in auctions seemed inclined to ever research and find out. Never ask a question you don't want the answer to. Greed is such a powerful motivator.
- riffraff 3y ago
  Basically all museums beyond galleries are filled with stolen stuff (Elgin marbles anyone?). I don't think _anyone_ other than the owners who suffered the theft cared about "legit origins" until very recent times.
  - toyg 3y ago
    That's not really true. You know about the Elgin marbles precisely because they're vigorously contested - unlike 90% of artefacts that left Greece, Egypt, Italy, etc in perfectly legal circumstances. It's true that colonial powers (chiefly Britain and France) have a particularly bad record, but not "all museums" contain looted stuff.
    - riffraff 3y ago
      but a lot of the artefacts left their countries in circumstances which sounded legal but were not. Consider the example of Euphronios Krater[0] which the Metropolitan Museum of New York "legally" acquired, and it took 40 years to convince the museum that it was not actually legal. Or the Ishtar Gate[1] parts which were smuggled out of Egypt by the germans and then bits were sent off to museums in the US, Denmark, Canada etc. Or the parthenon marbles owned by the Vatican and recently "gifted back". And that's big stuff! The smaller stuff is just less noticeable, but it's obvious if you think about it that a lot of stuff acquired before 1900 has not being acquired in a way that would be considered "proper" today. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios_Krater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios_Krater [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate
jwstarr 3y ago
Inspired by similar tales, my friends and I made a game about it (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/474859/artful-antics https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/474859/artful-an...) with the twist that the art is stealing itself. Ross Anderson's _Security Engineering_ has a chapter on physical security. Given the poor quality of security at most art galleries, one might expect more art to be stolen. However, it seems that it is often too difficult to sell.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Not to state the obvious, but -all- art, old and new, cheap and expensive are difficult to sell. Stolen, famous works come with addition costs and restrictions, not to mention jeopardy. Art is one of those things with a really long tail. Sure there are the famous artists, who are rightly admired, but I don't want a (legitimate or stolen) Rembrandt on my wall. I do buy art occasionally. Usually it's cheap. It's always just because it's a piece I like. Honestly, the limiting factor is wall space.
- schoen 3y ago
  You might enjoy Regina Spektor's song "All the Rowboats", which seems to posit (maybe like your game) that art objects don't enjoy being kept in museums, and would like to "escape". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CZ8ossU4pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CZ8ossU4pc
steve889john 3y ago
[flagged]
doosdoos 3y ago
The thief of the Ghent Altarpiece was a big fan of the detective books on Arsene Lupin. In real Lupin style, he sent 14 letters to the paintings' owners containing all kinds cryptic hints about the location of the work, before dying unexpectedly. Right before his dead, the thief confesses to his lawyer he had stolen the work. He still tries to give some more details, but it is too late and he passes away.
- elric 3y ago
  It's crazy how much the theft of The Just Judges is part of the local collective consciousness/imagination. Just about everybody in the wide Ghent area claims to know someone who knows for certain that it's buried beneath so-and-so's basement.
self_awareness 3y ago
The most funny thing is that sometimes the museum workers know where the stolen paintings are, but they don't want to be in any trouble by saying who has them. Maybe it's not true for the AAA-tier paintings, but those smaller ones, less popular but still valuable and with historical heritage, could be tracked, in theory. There was this one case near the place where I live, where a retired oldtimer who was very politicaly influential in his prime time had a few paintings, matching the paintings of the museum 100 kilometers away. When the museum worker was confronted about the missing paintings, the worker did not want to continue the conversation and quickly went away. The retired oldtimer is not with us anymore, so I imagine the paintings were moved to another members of the family. But tracking them would be rather easy. OTOH, retreiving them wouldn't be easy at all.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  I could imagine a number of them even ending up in the trash. My wife's family threw away most of their mother's odd collections because (a) they didn't have the space for it and (2) nobody knew how to take care of them because she wouldn't let anyone touch them.
- toyg 3y ago
  In UK, quite a bit of art donated to smaller museums in the XIX century is now missing. Chances of curators and local workers helping themselves to these collections through the decades, are very high. Same for modern art in Italian public buildings, some even from big names like Guttuso.
javajosh 3y ago
As an aside, funny that "broad daylight" is seemingly only mentioned when someone gets away with doing something nefarious.
rob74 3y ago
It's worth mentioning that there are three versions of The Poor Poet -besides the one stolen from Berlin, one is on display in Munich, and one is privately owned and used to be on display in Nuremberg (but not anymore).
lqet 3y ago
> Spitzweg’s piece is often seen as comedic because of the old umbrella that’s shown as magically floating in the air. Isn't it completely obvious that the umbrella is attached to the ceiling by strings, and that it hangs there because the roof leaks?
- freilanzer 3y ago
  Yes, from looking at it for a couple of seconds.
- codeflo 3y ago
  Yes. Nobody thinks that it’s magically floating. Was this written by AI? This reads like ChatGPT nonsense to me: “Many art historians think that Spitzweg wanted to depict a starving artist.”
  - rtavares 3y ago
    Probably. In the FAQ, for example, there is a repetition that is usually generated by LLMs: > What is the current status of the investigation into the missing Ghent Altarpiece panel? > The current investigation status of the missing Ghent Altarpiece panel (...) > Is there any information about the security measures that were in place at the Mohamed Khalil Museum during the thefts of Poppy Flowers? > Regarding the security measures at the Mohamed Khalil Museum during the theft of Poppy Flowers by Vincent van Gogh (...) > What is the value of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee today? > The value of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, if it were to be sold today, is challenging to estimate (...)
- cubefox 3y ago
  Thank you. I always assumed he hanged it on the ceiling to dry. Which doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.
- interludead 3y ago
  For me it was not so obvious
plasticeagle 3y ago
> One was Radu Dogaru, whose mother claimed that she burnt the paintings in her > stove in order to hide the evidence. The Irish Times reported Forensic > investigators tested the remains of the ashes and made a surprising discovery > They found wood, canvas, staples, and paint fragments that support her > statement. This meant that the forensic investigators would need to test these > remains further. No, that means the painting was burnt. This is a very peculiarly written article.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  That some painting was burnt.
generic92034 3y ago
Some of the masterpieces (not paintings, but still) stolen from the Green Vault [1] have not been returned, yet, even though the criminals were caught. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Vault#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Vault#21st_century
danielam 3y ago
War time is an especially bad time for art, libraries and archives, either because of the ensuing chaos, destruction and opportunism, or the systematic plundering and destruction of the invaded territory. As an example, take the truly staggering amount of art and cultural artifacts looted or destroyed, often systematically, during WWII by the Nazis and the Soviets. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, for example, has a division[0] that specializes in cataloging and attempting to recover such looted art. It is interesting how many suriving works are located in known private or public collections abroad, even periodically showing up at auction. ArtSherlock[1] (in Polish) also has some interesting articles about some of these works. They used to maintain a smartphone app that let you take pictures of artwork to determine whether it is a known missing piece, and then report it, if it is. [0] http://dzielautracone.gov.pl/ http://dzielautracone.gov.pl/ [1] https://artsherlock.pl/ https://artsherlock.pl/
- interludead 3y ago
  Absolutely, wartime often poses significant threats to cultural heritage... It's such a pity that war still exists
Luc 3y ago
The section about the Ghent Altarpiece is awful and clearly written by someone with no knowledge of the subject. I didn't read further.
- ziddoap 3y ago
  You're implying you have knowledge of the subject, so rather than just a short dismissal, perhaps you could satiate our curiosity with some of your knowledge and/or some links to some non-awful information that you approve of?
  - Luc 3y ago
    Wikipedia. Probably any of the first page results on Google would be better than this.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      How do you know which source is more accurate, if any of them are?
      - Luc 3y ago
        My point is that nearly any mainstream source will be better than this article, it's that bad.
- gield 3y ago
  Indeed, the last paragraph seems totally made up. The whole panel was stolen, not half of it. And Goedertier never demanded any ransom, the thief did but the article assumes he's definitely the thief. It's still unclear whether he was involved, he was a suspect because during the final minutes of his life, he mumbled some words about being the only person who knows where the stolen panel is. The paragraph in question, for posterity: >The artwork was stolen yet again in 1934 by stockbroker and businessman Arsène Goedertie. He sent a group of men to the cathedral one evening to steal the bottom left panel known as The Just Judges. Goedertie had sliced the panel in half, leaving the other half for the police to find, and demanded a ransom for the panel. The Belgian Minister refused, so the panel is still missing to this day. You can still check out the entire 12-panel Ghent Altarpiece on display, with an impressive replica of the missing panel.
cubefox 3y ago
This list is not as interesting as it could be. All five stolen paintings seem to be preserved as high quality color photos, but there are other artworks that are only preserved as black and white photos, as an imperfect copy made at the time, or even just as sketches made from memory after the fact. For others we only have text descriptions, like some lost artworks of antiquity.
danaris 3y ago
While it's true, as the article says, that the frames in the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum are still left hanging empty on the walls, it leaves out that a major reason for that is that they can't be replaced with anything. When she created the museum, Gardner stipulated that nothing could ever be added to or removed from the collection. Thus, even if they removed the empty frames from the walls, they would just be left with empty spots instead. In order to somewhat get around this, the modern museum has built an entire annex (outside the original museum) where they can have more of a flexible collection.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> The center panel, also the largest one, shows people paying homage to their god. This seems like it was written by AI. The description of the panel sounds like something that would be an AI image caption.
lewismenelaws 3y ago
The whole concept of art gaining perceived value after it's stolen is interesting to me. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend "Exit Through the Gift Shop" by Banksy that explores this concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVXThss1z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVXThss1z4 I wouldn't be surprised if most of these robberies are staged in an attempt to raise prices/launder money.
- u32480932048 3y ago
  The Art World makes a lot more sense when you look at it through the lens of a giant money laundering operation
  - pests 3y ago
    Yep. It's just a token used to move money around. If I owe you $100 million for some criminal or nefarious reason... Hey, nice painting you got there, it's worth $100 million you say? Now I have the token and when someone needs to pay me, I can just pass it along. The token isn't worth anything.
jcalx 3y ago
Also see Bloomberg Businessweek's excellent "You Could Fill a Museum" graphic — every item with dimensions listed in the FBI's stolen art database illustrated, to scale. You could fill a museum indeed! https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/3266-you-could-fill-a-museum https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/3266-y...

113 points by Tomte 3y ago

Interestingly, the Mona Lisa wasn't considered to be anything special until after it was stolen. It was the headlines and the frenzy surrounding the news that caused it to be so popular once it was found. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/30/138800110/the-theft-that-made-the-mona-lisa-a-masterpiece https://www.npr.org/2011/07/30/138800110/the-theft-that-made...

m3kw9 3y ago
Rarity is like an illusion
- kibwen 3y ago
  Not even rarity, because every painting is basically unique and non-fungible (modulo replicas). Instead, it's memes that make unique things more valuable than other unique things.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Paintings are unique the way people are unique. Each one is different but there are a LOT of them. Some are objectively in another league, but 99% of it can be swapped out for something that appeals to you more personally. Memes don't make a Rembrandt valuable, but equally the Rembrandt name matters more than the picture. So more "branding" than meme. I subscribe to the notion that if it takes an expert to tell the difference between a fake or real Rembrandt, then (value aside) you have a Rembrandt. Or Rembrandt-quality painting.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      > So more "branding" than meme. Agreed, but it's worth examining how branding is itself memetic. Why is Rembrandt associated with value? Because of a perpetuating idea that Rembrandt was highly skilled, and thus his paintings are higher quality. But why do we say that Rembrandt was highly skilled? Because of a perpetuating idea that tells us what skill at classical painting should look like, and then a perpetuating idea that tells us that Rembrandt was an exemplar of that artificially-defined category.
      - cubefox 3y ago
        It seems more likely that Rembrandt defied some of the standard art style at the time and is remembered for his innovation. For example, his paintings look quite realistic but tend to exhibit unusually dramatic lighting. Perhaps nobody did that before him, or not with the same quality, or only in a small number of artworks.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    I like the concept of Mana - https://medium.com/luminasticity/art-as-a-tool-for-storing-mana-69d90f1a014b https://medium.com/luminasticity/art-as-a-tool-for-storing-m... (the link might not be to your taste as it is sort of criticism but written in a fictional universe) "One of the primary properties of anything with Mana is a feeling of uniqueness. That one has never encountered something like this before, and therefore it is important. The uniqueness of the thing is a property that pulls you in to focus more closely, to attempt to understand more closely why the thing is unique."
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    It is like having a Bob Ross painting. Which is surprisingly actually decently difficult to do as he kept most of them even though he made thousands of them. They are mostly in a Bob Ross museum. But 100 years from now? Without that show and the people who grew up watching it? Will they be worth anything?
bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
Those of us that don't know anything about art still don't consider it anything special. I wouldn't even put it on a wall at home. Looks crusty, for one.
- vsnf 3y ago
  Meanwhile, there are works of immeasurably lesser technical talent hanging on my walls that I spend much time admiring. Good art is good art, and it's best to not let anyone tell you what that means or doesn't mean.
  - onionisafruit 3y ago
    My favorite painting is by my wife’s grandmother’s childhood neighbor who only showed one painting in her life (circa 1963). I’m sure that an art critic would tear it to pieces, but to me it’s beautiful. I feel lucky to have it in my house. It’s starting to deteriorate and I need to find somebody to restore it, but I don’t want to entrust it to anybody I can afford.
    - Projectiboga 3y ago
      Make it a hobby project. First to figure out is what is it on and then the paint type. From there you can research how to maybe restore and to preserve and slow or stop the degradation. Find books use AnnasArchive if they aren't in your library after researching books about restoration and preservation.
      - onionisafruit 3y ago
        You don't know how unhandy I am. I would not be able to DIY this without making it worse, but today I contacted a restorer to at least find out what it will take. I assume that it will be multiple thousands of dollars, but have never even verified that assumption.
  - bch 3y ago
    I think it was the director of the Art Gallery of Ontario talking about “art” in an interview who said (roughly) “Art is the match - your mind is the cigar”.
keiferski 3y ago
It was still a painting by one of the most renowned artists and individuals of all time. Maybe it wasn’t the mega-hit that it is today, but “not anything special” isn’t accurate either.
e4325f 3y ago
Yes it was. It's a masterpiece by one of the greatest artists of all time. There's a Great Art Explained episode [1] on it that's worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElWG0_kjy_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElWG0_kjy_Y
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  There are other works by Da Vinci in other museums too but again the Mona Lisa had become uniquely and superlatively special over his other works, and indeed, all other works of art.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    This reminds me of Stanisław Lem's literature theory / theory of everything monograph The Philosophy of Chance [1]. One of the many claims defended in the book was that which works ultimately become famous art depends to a great degree on random chance. The Mona Lisa is an unusually clear example. It doesn't even stand out among da Vinci's other paintings. Another example is music. Whether a piece becomes famous, isn't just influenced by whether it sound good. It also has to hit a specific nerve in the current zeitgeist. If the best House track of all time came out tomorrow, nobody would notice, because the genre isn't popular anymore. The artwork has to be at the right place at the right time, or it will be forgotten by history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Chance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Chance
  - pluc 3y ago
    Eh, I think it caught on because it's simple to describe. Da Vinci's other pieces in the Uffizi are a lot more elaborate and can't be summed up by "portrait with a smile". People like simple.
  - Smoosh 3y ago
    Yes, I prefer "Woman with a ferret[1]" myself. A better work in almost every way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_an_Ermine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_an_Ermine

jmyeet 3y ago

Stealing renowned art like this is an interesting phenomenon as it becomes largely impossible to ever display it or claim it let alone sell it. There are some cases whre the motive doesn't seem to be theft for the black market (eg the ransom case mentioned). So the psychology is that someone with a lot of money wants to pay to take an artwork and put it in a vault, never displaying it. So the reward is to know something other people don't (ie the art's location) and to exert power over people by denying them the ability to see that art. That paints what seems to be a fairly accurate psychological profile of the ultra-wealthy as a whole. The other side of art theft is looting, usually in war and particularly by the Nazis in WW2. The interesting part of this one is how the art and auction world enabled and profited off this trade where they willingly participated in the resale of stolen artwork even though there's clear provenance back to the original owners that no one involved in auctions seemed inclined to ever research and find out. Never ask a question you don't want the answer to. Greed is such a powerful motivator.

riffraff 3y ago
Basically all museums beyond galleries are filled with stolen stuff (Elgin marbles anyone?). I don't think _anyone_ other than the owners who suffered the theft cared about "legit origins" until very recent times.
- toyg 3y ago
  That's not really true. You know about the Elgin marbles precisely because they're vigorously contested - unlike 90% of artefacts that left Greece, Egypt, Italy, etc in perfectly legal circumstances. It's true that colonial powers (chiefly Britain and France) have a particularly bad record, but not "all museums" contain looted stuff.
  - riffraff 3y ago
    but a lot of the artefacts left their countries in circumstances which sounded legal but were not. Consider the example of Euphronios Krater[0] which the Metropolitan Museum of New York "legally" acquired, and it took 40 years to convince the museum that it was not actually legal. Or the Ishtar Gate[1] parts which were smuggled out of Egypt by the germans and then bits were sent off to museums in the US, Denmark, Canada etc. Or the parthenon marbles owned by the Vatican and recently "gifted back". And that's big stuff! The smaller stuff is just less noticeable, but it's obvious if you think about it that a lot of stuff acquired before 1900 has not being acquired in a way that would be considered "proper" today. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios_Krater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios_Krater [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate

jwstarr 3y ago

Inspired by similar tales, my friends and I made a game about it (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/474859/artful-antics https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/474859/artful-an...) with the twist that the art is stealing itself. Ross Anderson's _Security Engineering_ has a chapter on physical security. Given the poor quality of security at most art galleries, one might expect more art to be stolen. However, it seems that it is often too difficult to sell.

bruce511 3y ago
Not to state the obvious, but -all- art, old and new, cheap and expensive are difficult to sell. Stolen, famous works come with addition costs and restrictions, not to mention jeopardy. Art is one of those things with a really long tail. Sure there are the famous artists, who are rightly admired, but I don't want a (legitimate or stolen) Rembrandt on my wall. I do buy art occasionally. Usually it's cheap. It's always just because it's a piece I like. Honestly, the limiting factor is wall space.
schoen 3y ago
You might enjoy Regina Spektor's song "All the Rowboats", which seems to posit (maybe like your game) that art objects don't enjoy being kept in museums, and would like to "escape". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CZ8ossU4pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CZ8ossU4pc

steve889john 3y ago

[flagged]

doosdoos 3y ago

The thief of the Ghent Altarpiece was a big fan of the detective books on Arsene Lupin. In real Lupin style, he sent 14 letters to the paintings' owners containing all kinds cryptic hints about the location of the work, before dying unexpectedly. Right before his dead, the thief confesses to his lawyer he had stolen the work. He still tries to give some more details, but it is too late and he passes away.

elric 3y ago
It's crazy how much the theft of The Just Judges is part of the local collective consciousness/imagination. Just about everybody in the wide Ghent area claims to know someone who knows for certain that it's buried beneath so-and-so's basement.

self_awareness 3y ago

The most funny thing is that sometimes the museum workers know where the stolen paintings are, but they don't want to be in any trouble by saying who has them. Maybe it's not true for the AAA-tier paintings, but those smaller ones, less popular but still valuable and with historical heritage, could be tracked, in theory. There was this one case near the place where I live, where a retired oldtimer who was very politicaly influential in his prime time had a few paintings, matching the paintings of the museum 100 kilometers away. When the museum worker was confronted about the missing paintings, the worker did not want to continue the conversation and quickly went away. The retired oldtimer is not with us anymore, so I imagine the paintings were moved to another members of the family. But tracking them would be rather easy. OTOH, retreiving them wouldn't be easy at all.

withinboredom 3y ago
I could imagine a number of them even ending up in the trash. My wife's family threw away most of their mother's odd collections because (a) they didn't have the space for it and (2) nobody knew how to take care of them because she wouldn't let anyone touch them.
toyg 3y ago
In UK, quite a bit of art donated to smaller museums in the XIX century is now missing. Chances of curators and local workers helping themselves to these collections through the decades, are very high. Same for modern art in Italian public buildings, some even from big names like Guttuso.

javajosh 3y ago

As an aside, funny that "broad daylight" is seemingly only mentioned when someone gets away with doing something nefarious.

rob74 3y ago

It's worth mentioning that there are three versions of The Poor Poet -besides the one stolen from Berlin, one is on display in Munich, and one is privately owned and used to be on display in Nuremberg (but not anymore).

lqet 3y ago

> Spitzweg’s piece is often seen as comedic because of the old umbrella that’s shown as magically floating in the air. Isn't it completely obvious that the umbrella is attached to the ceiling by strings, and that it hangs there because the roof leaks?

freilanzer 3y ago
Yes, from looking at it for a couple of seconds.
codeflo 3y ago
Yes. Nobody thinks that it’s magically floating. Was this written by AI? This reads like ChatGPT nonsense to me: “Many art historians think that Spitzweg wanted to depict a starving artist.”
- rtavares 3y ago
  Probably. In the FAQ, for example, there is a repetition that is usually generated by LLMs: > What is the current status of the investigation into the missing Ghent Altarpiece panel? > The current investigation status of the missing Ghent Altarpiece panel (...) > Is there any information about the security measures that were in place at the Mohamed Khalil Museum during the thefts of Poppy Flowers? > Regarding the security measures at the Mohamed Khalil Museum during the theft of Poppy Flowers by Vincent van Gogh (...) > What is the value of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee today? > The value of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, if it were to be sold today, is challenging to estimate (...)
cubefox 3y ago
Thank you. I always assumed he hanged it on the ceiling to dry. Which doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.
interludead 3y ago
For me it was not so obvious

plasticeagle 3y ago

> One was Radu Dogaru, whose mother claimed that she burnt the paintings in her > stove in order to hide the evidence. The Irish Times reported Forensic > investigators tested the remains of the ashes and made a surprising discovery > They found wood, canvas, staples, and paint fragments that support her > statement. This meant that the forensic investigators would need to test these > remains further. No, that means the painting was burnt. This is a very peculiarly written article.

pvaldes 3y ago
That some painting was burnt.

generic92034 3y ago

Some of the masterpieces (not paintings, but still) stolen from the Green Vault [1] have not been returned, yet, even though the criminals were caught. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Vault#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Vault#21st_century

danielam 3y ago

War time is an especially bad time for art, libraries and archives, either because of the ensuing chaos, destruction and opportunism, or the systematic plundering and destruction of the invaded territory. As an example, take the truly staggering amount of art and cultural artifacts looted or destroyed, often systematically, during WWII by the Nazis and the Soviets. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, for example, has a division[0] that specializes in cataloging and attempting to recover such looted art. It is interesting how many suriving works are located in known private or public collections abroad, even periodically showing up at auction. ArtSherlock[1] (in Polish) also has some interesting articles about some of these works. They used to maintain a smartphone app that let you take pictures of artwork to determine whether it is a known missing piece, and then report it, if it is. [0] http://dzielautracone.gov.pl/ http://dzielautracone.gov.pl/ [1] https://artsherlock.pl/ https://artsherlock.pl/

interludead 3y ago
Absolutely, wartime often poses significant threats to cultural heritage... It's such a pity that war still exists

Luc 3y ago

The section about the Ghent Altarpiece is awful and clearly written by someone with no knowledge of the subject. I didn't read further.

ziddoap 3y ago
You're implying you have knowledge of the subject, so rather than just a short dismissal, perhaps you could satiate our curiosity with some of your knowledge and/or some links to some non-awful information that you approve of?
- Luc 3y ago
  Wikipedia. Probably any of the first page results on Google would be better than this.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    How do you know which source is more accurate, if any of them are?
    - Luc 3y ago
      My point is that nearly any mainstream source will be better than this article, it's that bad.
gield 3y ago
Indeed, the last paragraph seems totally made up. The whole panel was stolen, not half of it. And Goedertier never demanded any ransom, the thief did but the article assumes he's definitely the thief. It's still unclear whether he was involved, he was a suspect because during the final minutes of his life, he mumbled some words about being the only person who knows where the stolen panel is. The paragraph in question, for posterity: >The artwork was stolen yet again in 1934 by stockbroker and businessman Arsène Goedertie. He sent a group of men to the cathedral one evening to steal the bottom left panel known as The Just Judges. Goedertie had sliced the panel in half, leaving the other half for the police to find, and demanded a ransom for the panel. The Belgian Minister refused, so the panel is still missing to this day. You can still check out the entire 12-panel Ghent Altarpiece on display, with an impressive replica of the missing panel.

cubefox 3y ago

This list is not as interesting as it could be. All five stolen paintings seem to be preserved as high quality color photos, but there are other artworks that are only preserved as black and white photos, as an imperfect copy made at the time, or even just as sketches made from memory after the fact. For others we only have text descriptions, like some lost artworks of antiquity.

danaris 3y ago

While it's true, as the article says, that the frames in the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum are still left hanging empty on the walls, it leaves out that a major reason for that is that they can't be replaced with anything. When she created the museum, Gardner stipulated that nothing could ever be added to or removed from the collection. Thus, even if they removed the empty frames from the walls, they would just be left with empty spots instead. In order to somewhat get around this, the modern museum has built an entire annex (outside the original museum) where they can have more of a flexible collection.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> The center panel, also the largest one, shows people paying homage to their god. This seems like it was written by AI. The description of the panel sounds like something that would be an AI image caption.

lewismenelaws 3y ago

The whole concept of art gaining perceived value after it's stolen is interesting to me. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend "Exit Through the Gift Shop" by Banksy that explores this concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVXThss1z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVXThss1z4 I wouldn't be surprised if most of these robberies are staged in an attempt to raise prices/launder money.

u32480932048 3y ago
The Art World makes a lot more sense when you look at it through the lens of a giant money laundering operation
- pests 3y ago
  Yep. It's just a token used to move money around. If I owe you $100 million for some criminal or nefarious reason... Hey, nice painting you got there, it's worth $100 million you say? Now I have the token and when someone needs to pay me, I can just pass it along. The token isn't worth anything.

jcalx 3y ago

Also see Bloomberg Businessweek's excellent "You Could Fill a Museum" graphic — every item with dimensions listed in the FBI's stolen art database illustrated, to scale. You could fill a museum indeed! https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/3266-you-could-fill-a-museum https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/3266-y...