Paper presented at the Art CrimeProtecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers Conference.
In 1998, the theft of two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and another by Cezanne from the National Gallery in Rome made headlines around the world. Fortunately, the Italian police recovered them almost immediately. Just last month the Italian police had a similar success with the recovery of five paintings stolen from the Capitoline Museum. Many here may recall the theft of the paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in the US 1990 when thieves, posing as police officers gained entry to the museum and stole the only known seascape by Rembrandt, one of the few extant paintings by Jan Vermeer as well as several other paintings and objects, garnering in all twelve items. Nine years later, they are still unrecovered. When such major works of art are stolen, the story almost always makes the headlines internationally. However, such attention getting thefts are only a small portion of the problem of stolen art and cultural property. Art theft is endemic and perennial and not a sporadic event that occurs infrequently as the headlines would suggest. Stolen art runs the gamut from those masterpieces mentioned to the inherited 19th century silver tea set or candlesticks, the Oriental carpet, silver wine coasters, the Georgian chair and so on and on.
