I fully approve of art theft. There should be honor among thieves of course. You shouldn't damage art. But if a painting isn't stolen now and then, well it wasn't worth painting in the first place. Really, what is art for but to enliven the doldrums of the rich?
A moment or three of aesthetic pleasure, bragging at parties, but really most days it's just so much wallpaper. No, the true purpose of art is to be stolen. Then the chase begins, the drama, the mystery, the appreciation of the craft of skullduggery.
Eventually you track down the blighter who nabbed the splotchy-whatsit, buy him a beer and throw him back in the clink. That's where he'll meet his next crew, plan the next heist, and start the whole glorious affair over again.
So cheers to the cheeky beggars who grabbed the Gogh, let the fun begin!
What is the end goal for the thieves? Seeing as you obviously can't sell stolen artwork on the open market- how many insanely wealthy private collectors can there be out there, who are willing to risk substantial prison time to own a stolen painting? I think many or most people who have that much money probably made it legally and don't have that kind of risk tolerance. And I doubt many mob boss/Tony Soprano types really have an appreciation for fine art.... So what's the market like?
(And if there is a market for shady wealthy stolen art buyers, how do you get connected with them? Seems like every node in a web of underground connections is someone the police can potentially arrest & flip, etc.)
Interestingly as I understand it part of the point is that by stealing the original you are able to create both better counterfeits and a market for them.
Think about it — obviously no one will buy a counterfeit "Starry Night" or whatever if it's hanging in a museum. But if it's stolen, all of a sudden there's the possibility that they can buy the original.
Not only that, but the counterfeit, created with extensive access to the original, is likely to be almost indistinguishable from it except by experts.
So the thieves steal the original, make a few copies, sell those for millions saying each is the original, then return the original to the museum. The best part is, the people who bought the counterfeits can't exactly go to the police. It's the perfect crime!
Sound crazy? This is what is speculated to have happened to the Mona Lisa some time ago.
The "Tony Soprano types" are probably more common - and perhaps less savvy - than you might expect. The type of person who thinks one can buy a hot van Gogh for a few million bucks is a pretty ripe target for counterfeiters.
Super rich person really wants that particular painting to hang in a private room where they can enjoy it.
And they go through a couple connections for plausible deniability -- buying it from some kind of "dealer" they can "assume" is "legit", and the "dealer" then connects with actual criminals to steal it.
If ever caught (unlikely), the thieves and "dealer" take the fall, not the rich person. Also the rich person may be halfway around the world in a country where there's literally zero chance of being caught/extradited.
But the thieves and dealer are going to make a helluva lot of money, obviously, for the risk they're taking.
Michel Van Rijn was a 'famous' Dutch art smuggler. He explained that a lot of art was ordered. The extreme wealthy of the underground just buy it because they want it.
Edit: the Vice article doesn't mention the thefts and looting. There are other sources for this.
It is also unclear if he really is a former smuggler.
Edit 2: The other reason is it's relatively easy to steal art. And most thieves focus on that part. The selling part is difficult and is also why a lot of stolen art is later recovered.
Apparently they can be used as collateral between criminals for loans. They can also be used as an insurance policy if the criminal is ever caught. Offer to exchange the art for a lesser sentence. A literal get out of jail free card.
If you can get the goods to the Middle East (Qatar, UAE, Bahrain) I assure you there are filthy rich princes and sheikhs who (1) want to give the impression of a respect for fine art, and (2) are at absolutely no risk of prosecution, and (3) would drop the money just for fun / social posturing, not even as an investment.
I don't know what it's like in Northern Europe, but in Italy the motives can be more trivial than you'd expect.
In at least one case we know of, about 20 years ago, a local gangster had some beef with a bishop, so he got his men to break into the main church and steal a prized artwork. The painting was never found (afaik); the boss was later imprisoned for other reasons and basically admitted to his role in the heist, but can't remember what eventually happened to the artwork.
In another case, which was reported pretty recently, a long-stolen painting was found in a small hole in the external wall of the actual building it was stolen from. Motives were never explained by the suspected thief, and the theft happened so long ago that the statute of limitations impedes a prosecution anyway. The theory is just that "opportunity makes man a thief", as they say there: this guy might have seen an opening in the security procedures and might have gone for it, without really thinking about (or underestimating) subsequent steps; eventually he simply returned it (there is no chance that the painting could have survived for years in that hole with nay a scratch, clearly it was placed there very recently) once he knew he couldn't be punished for it.
Let me preface this by stating that I don't actually have any special knowledge of the art or criminal world beyond what I've seen in the movies, so the following is pure speculation.
I could imagine that if a thief's motive were purely financial, he/she could ransom the painting. "This is a priceless piece of world heritage that is heavily insured. Send XXX BTC to this wallet or I'll burn up the painting and send you its ashes."
As a rich art collector, you can buy a real Van Gogh for a fraction of its price. Can you risk jail? Sure, but who will know you own it anyway? It's not like you're going to expose it in your living room anyway.
Not only that, but as soon as you know there can be at least one person in the world willing to buy that stolen piece of art, it becomes a great asset to own even if you're not the said art collector. Let's say I'm a bad guy and I want to give another bad guy 2 million dollars but I don't want to be seen with or have to travel with a suitcase full of banknotes or with my own weight in gold bars. Just carrying a lightweight, low-profile cardboard tube containing those 2 million bucks as a painting is very convenient.
And don't forget the end customer is not necessarily someone living in the same country. What if he's a rich prince living in a rich country, far far away? He would be mostly out of reach.
It is effectively a kidnapping. The kidnapper gets a ransom. Otherwise known as a reward for “information leading to the return” of the stolen painting.
Check out The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), the classic is good too.
Interesting fictional perspective on the super wealthy and thinking they can have anything they want. legal or not. I expect it's not far from reality for some.
Eventually new technology exposes a counterfeit. There was a recent NOVA about fake dead sea scrolls and the competition between counterfeiters to create better fakes and forensic experts to weed them out. At the time the episode was filmed about a third of the scroll fragments owned by the Museum of the Bible were proven fakes. Now the rest of them have been proven false.
A lot of wealthy collectors who buy prestigious art never exhibit it in public. So anyone could get that thing and place it in a private vault. Other than that, my guess is that whoever stole it already has a client waiting to buy it. We could safely assume that the job is pretty much commissioned.
>Seeing as you obviously can't sell stolen artwork on the open market- how many insanely wealthy private collectors can there be out there, who are willing to risk substantial prison time to own a stolen painting?
There's zero risk involved if you're a Russian oligarch - the Russian constitution absolutely prohibits extradition and the Russian state has no interest in prosecuting wealthy, powerful and well-connected men for crimes that don't meaningfully harm and arguably benefit the Russian state. Much the same can be said for a number of Middle Eastern and Latin American jurisdictions.
This is a serious problem for stolen artworks. Back in the day the IRA stole several. The most use they ever were was as collateral to other illegal organisations. If you can find a decent history of them, it’s fascinating but the long and the short of it is that even to a large, well connected organisation they just proved more trouble than they were worth,
The truth is, the aesthete billionaire collector beloved by movies doesn’t much exist. Most truly expensive artwork is bought either as a store of value or to show off. Both require you to be able to publicise you have it.
Paul McCartney had his original Hofner Bass stolen and wondered the exact same as you.
He had a really funny theory about this that if you visit some German castle way up in the hills of Bavaria, after dinner the host will invite you into a room where his bass is hanging over the mantlepiece. [1]
I'd be willing to bet that in cases like this painting, the thieves were probably hired by a billionaire client. So, the buyer was the one who initiated the heist in the first place.
Here's an interesting idea, although it may be far fetched. Given the original, if a thief could produce a high quality counterfeit in van gough's style, they could possibly use parchment/ink from the true original in creating it. Then they'd have a "lost van gough" which could pass some basic age analysis. This lost painting would be worth more than the original, and they could sell it on the real art market, not a black market.
Or this may just a crappy movie plot. I don't know much about art.
> I think many or most people who have that much money probably made it legally
You're already becoming so technical(ly true) here that it should be obvious that the people you're speaking of are functionally amoral. Once you approach a certain wealth ceiling, the chances that you're caught in any real way approach zero.
>Ulman had not yet heard all the stories about Simchowitz’s generosity and its fatal attraction for young, penniless artists whom he lured into Faustian bargains. He would provide them with “all those adult things” they needed and so often lacked: room, board, materials. In exchange for extraordinary support, Simchowitz asked not for his artists’ souls but for their art, a deal that many of his protégés lived to regret.
Prison time isn't generally a risk for someone with enough wealth and connections to even catch wind of the offer to purchase a stolen Van Gogh painting.
For anyone wanting to have a wonderful 90s flashback featuring the theft of high-end art, you can't do worse during shelter in place than to watch the Thomas Crown Affair: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155267/
The value (in terms of money) of art has always been confusing to me.
Art has monetary value because:
1 it is a famous, one-of-a-kind piece
2 it can be used for money laundering and/or illegal transactions
Pieces in museums are always in the #1 category. Any other piece with high monetary value is clearly in the #2 category.
This stolen van Gogh will probably end up in a private collection, but really, what's the point? Since it is now a known stolen piece it now has no value in both category #1 and #2.
I have a hard time believing that the new 'owner' had it stolen for the artistic value. Really, if he/she wanted to look at it, he/she could have just gone to the museum. (Well, not right now due to COVID19, but you get the point).
People just like owning things. Even if you didn't steal something like a street sign when in high school or college, surely you know somebody who did. They have no monetary value, just having one is proof of crime, and you could can go look at a stop sign any time you want. But there's still a thrill to having it up on your wall, and it can increase your status with your peer group.
> The thieves smashed a large glass door at the front of the museum to access the building.
So let me get this straight. A fairly sized museum that holds, possibly, millions worth of art has absolutely no 24/7 security guards at the front door. Not even a single guard.
> Thieves have taken advantage of the distraction provided by the public health situation to steal a prize Vincent van Gogh painting from a museum in the Netherlands
Here is the opposite effect: The number of spam phone calls I have received has dropped from two or three most days to zero! Looks like the spammers cannot work remotely, which is really odd!
I'm surprised that, at this point, there are still originals in museums, especially for very desirable works as some replicas are hard to tell apart from the original. It can be done. If they hire professional 'replicators', this type of museum theft could be completely eradicated.
Another possibility is that maybe in this case a replica was stolen and the museum doesn't want to divulge that.
And want to add that this stolen work is almost un-sellable, everybody knows is missing and if it ever resurfaces it will be claimed back, thus nobody would want to own it. But what do I know..
But, what if Jan Rudolph de Lorm, the museum director was actually moving it to a safer location and accidentally destroyed it. Jans quick-thinking jumped into play and he called up a few college historian friends and asked for some help.
Jan was able to disable the alarm so her friends could come in and smash the place up, leave evidence that it was stolen, then activated the alarm just at the right time.
Jan had become good friends with Andreas Blühm, the director of the Groninger Museum and finally convinced him to let the Singer Laren museum take it on loan. Jan was so distraught there was no way he could could let himself be seen as an incompetent museum director. He had to cover his tracks.
He convinced his old historian friends to keep quiet about the cover-up by cutting up the remains of the painting and giving them each a piece. A story to be kept in secrecy only handed down each generation.
For anyone who has time on their hands and wants a good read, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a wonderful book that tells a story set in the world of art theft.
COVID-19 is providing many opportunities for criminals. It's only a matter of time before articles come out with titles like "How identity thieves took my federal tax return AND coronabucks" given the delay in filing US tax returns this year.
I will not be surprised when they were the same Lebanese gang from Berlin who also stole the big gold coin in Berlin, and most likely the Dresden green vault jewels. It's just too easy.
[+] [-] iandanforth|6 years ago|reply
A moment or three of aesthetic pleasure, bragging at parties, but really most days it's just so much wallpaper. No, the true purpose of art is to be stolen. Then the chase begins, the drama, the mystery, the appreciation of the craft of skullduggery.
Eventually you track down the blighter who nabbed the splotchy-whatsit, buy him a beer and throw him back in the clink. That's where he'll meet his next crew, plan the next heist, and start the whole glorious affair over again.
So cheers to the cheeky beggars who grabbed the Gogh, let the fun begin!
[+] [-] hash872|6 years ago|reply
(And if there is a market for shady wealthy stolen art buyers, how do you get connected with them? Seems like every node in a web of underground connections is someone the police can potentially arrest & flip, etc.)
[+] [-] devindotcom|6 years ago|reply
Think about it — obviously no one will buy a counterfeit "Starry Night" or whatever if it's hanging in a museum. But if it's stolen, all of a sudden there's the possibility that they can buy the original.
Not only that, but the counterfeit, created with extensive access to the original, is likely to be almost indistinguishable from it except by experts.
So the thieves steal the original, make a few copies, sell those for millions saying each is the original, then return the original to the museum. The best part is, the people who bought the counterfeits can't exactly go to the police. It's the perfect crime!
Sound crazy? This is what is speculated to have happened to the Mona Lisa some time ago.
The "Tony Soprano types" are probably more common - and perhaps less savvy - than you might expect. The type of person who thinks one can buy a hot van Gogh for a few million bucks is a pretty ripe target for counterfeiters.
[+] [-] crazygringo|6 years ago|reply
Super rich person really wants that particular painting to hang in a private room where they can enjoy it.
And they go through a couple connections for plausible deniability -- buying it from some kind of "dealer" they can "assume" is "legit", and the "dealer" then connects with actual criminals to steal it.
If ever caught (unlikely), the thieves and "dealer" take the fall, not the rich person. Also the rich person may be halfway around the world in a country where there's literally zero chance of being caught/extradited.
But the thieves and dealer are going to make a helluva lot of money, obviously, for the risk they're taking.
[+] [-] thdrdt|6 years ago|reply
A Vice article about him: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ex5qj4/how-i-became-one-o...
Edit: the Vice article doesn't mention the thefts and looting. There are other sources for this. It is also unclear if he really is a former smuggler.
Edit 2: The other reason is it's relatively easy to steal art. And most thieves focus on that part. The selling part is difficult and is also why a lot of stolen art is later recovered.
[+] [-] mulmen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorgoiler|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpodgursky|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|6 years ago|reply
In at least one case we know of, about 20 years ago, a local gangster had some beef with a bishop, so he got his men to break into the main church and steal a prized artwork. The painting was never found (afaik); the boss was later imprisoned for other reasons and basically admitted to his role in the heist, but can't remember what eventually happened to the artwork.
In another case, which was reported pretty recently, a long-stolen painting was found in a small hole in the external wall of the actual building it was stolen from. Motives were never explained by the suspected thief, and the theft happened so long ago that the statute of limitations impedes a prosecution anyway. The theory is just that "opportunity makes man a thief", as they say there: this guy might have seen an opening in the security procedures and might have gone for it, without really thinking about (or underestimating) subsequent steps; eventually he simply returned it (there is no chance that the painting could have survived for years in that hole with nay a scratch, clearly it was placed there very recently) once he knew he couldn't be punished for it.
[+] [-] bmistree|6 years ago|reply
I could imagine that if a thief's motive were purely financial, he/she could ransom the painting. "This is a priceless piece of world heritage that is heavily insured. Send XXX BTC to this wallet or I'll burn up the painting and send you its ashes."
[+] [-] sparrc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sacado2|6 years ago|reply
Not only that, but as soon as you know there can be at least one person in the world willing to buy that stolen piece of art, it becomes a great asset to own even if you're not the said art collector. Let's say I'm a bad guy and I want to give another bad guy 2 million dollars but I don't want to be seen with or have to travel with a suitcase full of banknotes or with my own weight in gold bars. Just carrying a lightweight, low-profile cardboard tube containing those 2 million bucks as a painting is very convenient.
And don't forget the end customer is not necessarily someone living in the same country. What if he's a rich prince living in a rich country, far far away? He would be mostly out of reach.
[+] [-] buckminster|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saluki|6 years ago|reply
Interesting fictional perspective on the super wealthy and thinking they can have anything they want. legal or not. I expect it's not far from reality for some.
"I love my haystacks."
Great movie.
[+] [-] peter303|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elorant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|6 years ago|reply
There's zero risk involved if you're a Russian oligarch - the Russian constitution absolutely prohibits extradition and the Russian state has no interest in prosecuting wealthy, powerful and well-connected men for crimes that don't meaningfully harm and arguably benefit the Russian state. Much the same can be said for a number of Middle Eastern and Latin American jurisdictions.
[+] [-] moomin|6 years ago|reply
The truth is, the aesthete billionaire collector beloved by movies doesn’t much exist. Most truly expensive artwork is bought either as a store of value or to show off. Both require you to be able to publicise you have it.
[+] [-] warent|6 years ago|reply
He had a really funny theory about this that if you visit some German castle way up in the hills of Bavaria, after dinner the host will invite you into a room where his bass is hanging over the mantlepiece. [1]
I'd be willing to bet that in cases like this painting, the thieves were probably hired by a billionaire client. So, the buyer was the one who initiated the heist in the first place.
[1] https://youtu.be/5Pf19jV1NYw?t=849
[+] [-] eyegor|6 years ago|reply
Or this may just a crappy movie plot. I don't know much about art.
[+] [-] kube-system|6 years ago|reply
Why? It's perfect. Cartels/mobsters love extravagant things, art is convenient for money laundering, and they already DGAF about the law.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/3-drug-kingpins-art-adored...
[+] [-] frereubu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krageon|6 years ago|reply
You're already becoming so technical(ly true) here that it should be obvious that the people you're speaking of are functionally amoral. Once you approach a certain wealth ceiling, the chances that you're caught in any real way approach zero.
[+] [-] vanduh|6 years ago|reply
Plenty. Think Drug Cartel Bosses. Over half-a-dozen in Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela alone. Nett worth in Billions.
[+] [-] basch|6 years ago|reply
art theft also makes for good journalism (about the same theft, heist story) https://www.nrc.nl/kunsthal-en/
and its still profitable, for people who are good at it. https://www.gq.com/story/secrets-of-the-worlds-greatest-art-...
war is a little different, but leads to similar results https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2014/04/degenerate-art-corne...
finally, not so much direct theft, but Art World Satan (his own self curated image) Stefan Simchowitz is interesting in his own right, buying up all of someones paintings before they are famous, and flipping them, once he hypes them up enough as the next big thing. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-art-worlds-p... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/is-silicon-valley-de... https://hyperallergic.com/452852/the-notorious-stefan-simcho... https://hyperallergic.com/172910/stefan-simchowitz-isnt-as-c... https://www.lamag.com/longform/man-art-gallery-owners-love-h... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-12/hot-new-a... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-06/art-flipp... https://www.vulture.com/2014/03/saltz-on-the-great-and-power...
>Ulman had not yet heard all the stories about Simchowitz’s generosity and its fatal attraction for young, penniless artists whom he lured into Faustian bargains. He would provide them with “all those adult things” they needed and so often lacked: room, board, materials. In exchange for extraordinary support, Simchowitz asked not for his artists’ souls but for their art, a deal that many of his protégés lived to regret.
one more about the girl whos legs got destroyed in the grayhound accident https://outline.com/LgJMGd
[+] [-] acdanger|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinmhayes|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] predators372|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dannykwells|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeonM|6 years ago|reply
Art has monetary value because:
1 it is a famous, one-of-a-kind piece
2 it can be used for money laundering and/or illegal transactions
Pieces in museums are always in the #1 category. Any other piece with high monetary value is clearly in the #2 category.
This stolen van Gogh will probably end up in a private collection, but really, what's the point? Since it is now a known stolen piece it now has no value in both category #1 and #2.
I have a hard time believing that the new 'owner' had it stolen for the artistic value. Really, if he/she wanted to look at it, he/she could have just gone to the museum. (Well, not right now due to COVID19, but you get the point).
[+] [-] wpietri|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthegreek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|6 years ago|reply
So let me get this straight. A fairly sized museum that holds, possibly, millions worth of art has absolutely no 24/7 security guards at the front door. Not even a single guard.
Come on.
[+] [-] herodotus|6 years ago|reply
Here is the opposite effect: The number of spam phone calls I have received has dropped from two or three most days to zero! Looks like the spammers cannot work remotely, which is really odd!
[+] [-] songshuu|6 years ago|reply
Hit it Rockapella! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1EIUP8tvbE
[+] [-] tartoran|6 years ago|reply
Another possibility is that maybe in this case a replica was stolen and the museum doesn't want to divulge that.
And want to add that this stolen work is almost un-sellable, everybody knows is missing and if it ever resurfaces it will be claimed back, thus nobody would want to own it. But what do I know..
[+] [-] tech-no-logical|6 years ago|reply
https://www.singerlaren.nl/en/nieuws/460/burglary_at_singer_...
[+] [-] KingFelix|6 years ago|reply
Jan was able to disable the alarm so her friends could come in and smash the place up, leave evidence that it was stolen, then activated the alarm just at the right time.
Jan had become good friends with Andreas Blühm, the director of the Groninger Museum and finally convinced him to let the Singer Laren museum take it on loan. Jan was so distraught there was no way he could could let himself be seen as an incompetent museum director. He had to cover his tracks.
He convinced his old historian friends to keep quiet about the cover-up by cutting up the remains of the painting and giving them each a piece. A story to be kept in secrecy only handed down each generation.
But Jan forgot one thing.......
[+] [-] kyleblarson|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btrettel|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] peter_d_sherman|6 years ago|reply
So it could be said that the Van Gogh... Van Went... away... <g>
[+] [-] magwa101|6 years ago|reply
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