The Association for Research into Crimes against Art
The Quest for Justice
Criminal acts against works of art happen more frequently than the public imagines.The stories of these objects range from the dramatic to the all but forgotten. Art works are plundered during war, dug up for profit, stolen from museums, laundered on the art market and sometimes held as collateral by organised crime groups. Art will always attract criminals. Not because criminals are charmed or fascinated by it more than other people, but because with it, there will always be a market.
Art and Antiquities Crime News
A History of the Statue of the Victorious Youth – Comparing the Getty’s Timeline with Italy’s
On December 3, 2018 Lisa Lapin, Vice President of Communications, J. Paul Getty Trust, released a press statement on the decision by Italy’s Court of Cassation on the Legal Ownership of the Victorious Youth. The museum also issued a timeline which I have elaborated...
A deck swab gives directions, but then there’s the law, even for the King of Clams
In 2006 Italian "fisherman" Igli Rosato a.k.a Athos Rosato spoke with US journalist Jason Felch about the fateful day in 1964 when the Victorious Youth bronze was fished from the Adriatic. In that interview Rosato told the journalist that the statue was hauled up 32...
Italy’s Court of Cassation rejects the J. Paul Getty Museum’s appeal against the lower court ruling on the Getty Bronze
On Monday, Italy’s Cassation Court rejected the J. Paul Getty Museum's appeal against the lower court ruling in Pesaro, issued by Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini. That earlier ruling, issued on June 08, 2018, was in favour of the prosecution’s request for seizure of the...
3 Men and a Painting: Savvy accomplices make off with “Golfe, Mer, Falaises Vertes” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Entering Vienna's oldest auction house, the Dorotheum, just after sunset, three well-dressed men in jackets and coats, working in tandem are believed to have made off with a landscape painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir titled Golfe, Mer, Falaises Vertes (English: Gulf,...
Recovered: “Portrait of Marta Ghezzi Baldinotti” stolen 32 years ago from Palazzo Chigi
The team of the Carabinieri del Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC) in Palermo, under the command of Magg. Luigi Mancuso, has proven once again that patience makes perfect when it comes to the recovery of stolen art. While the squad has not yet recovered...
How long does it take to achieve restitution of a looted antiquity? In some cases 25 years or more
PURCHASED ACQ NUMBER DESCRIPTION 29 February 1992 292.AA.10 Statue of Zeus Enthroned On October 27, 2018 a first century BCE, marble statue of Zeus, seated on his throne, finally moved to its permanent home, the...
Recovered? Anonymous tip may have lead to Picasso’s “Tete d’Arlequin” stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam in 2012
On October 16, 2012 Dutch police confirmed that seven paintings had been stolen, shortly after 3 a.m. local time, from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. The paintings which were taken, Pablo Picasso's Tete d'Arlequin, Henri Matisse's La Liseuse en Blanc et...
Recoverable or Not? The sale of the Assyrian gypsum relief of a winged Genius, reign of Ashurnasirpal II, circa 883-859 BCE
In March 2015, the Iraqi government formally announced that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL had purposefully destroyed much of the Northwest Palace of King Ashurnasirpal II as part of their iconoclastic program of obliterating preislamic cultural...
Recovered: 26 years after its theft “San Carlo Borromeo in Contemplation”
In a ceremony held at the San Pietro Apostolo in Cavenago d'Adda, Italy, parishioners celebrate the return of the 17th century painting "San Carlo Borromeo in Contemplation" by early Baroque artist Daniele Crespi. Stolen twenty-six years ago, on February 5, 1992, ...