It seems that the picture "Woman - ocher" Willem de Kooning, whose value now stands at more than $ 100 million, 33 years ago from the Art Museum of the University of Arizona stole a quiet intelligent couple. The newspaper New York Post told about another evidence - this is a frame from a family album, which confirmed that the day before the crime, the music teacher and speech therapist from the American outback were in the same city of Tucson, where the museum is located. The image of the malefactors, who apparently tried to change the appearance, partially coincides with the image of the spouses of Rita and Jerry Alter. Thieves raced off on a sports car in red - the same was for the couple. A year before his death, Jerry published a story about the robbery of the museum - that's where they steal not the painting, but the jewel. The investigation is still ongoing, but the main thing is that the canvas was found exactly one year ago. His antiquarian returned to his museum, which was addressed by Alter's nephew, who inherited their property. Apparently, all 32 years of work hanging in the bedroom with the spouses, which until now all the neighbors have spoken of as incredibly honest and respectable people.
According to the company Art Loss Register, which collects data on stolen works of art, the top three "hijacked" artists include Picasso, Renoir and Caravaggio. Among the specific works, the leader can be "The Portrait of Jacob de Hein II", which since 1966 has been abducted and returned to the Dalic Gallery in London four times, for which he received the nickname "Rembrandt to Take Back". And here are some more pictures that have not been returned yet - but they are looking for it with all their might.
"Concert" by Jan Vermeer and "Christ in the storm of the Sea of ??Galilee" by Rembrandt. Stolen in 1990.
At around midnight on March 18, 1990, a fashionable red car drove up to the building of the Isabella Stewart-Gardner Museum in Boston. Out of him came two men in police uniforms. They headed for the front door, one of them rang the doorbell. Imagining himself as a guardian of order, the man told the guard that he and his colleague heard a noise in the courtyard of the museum, and politely but insistently asked to let him in. And then everything was like in action movies: the unlucky security guard wrenched their hands and, having rolled up the head with scotch tape, was dragged to the basement where they handcuffed the battery to the battery. After that, the "policemen", one of whom lost his mustache, began to work in the halls of the museum. After 81 minutes, they loaded into their car works of art for hundreds of millions. The most valuable among them - "Christ during the storm on the Sea of ??Galilee" by Rembrandt and "Concert" by Jan Vermeer. This artist rarely appears on the art market. For not the most successful of his later work "The Girl for Verginel" was paid almost $ 30 million (Sotheby's, 2004). And the most expensive at the moment, the picture of Rembrandt at the open auction - "Portrait of the Man Who Parted", it was purchased for $ 33 million (Christie's, 2009). Despite the solid reward, which doubled in 2017 - from $ 5 million to $ 10 million, - the loss was never found. The robbery is included in the rating of the main art crimes of the FBI. By the way, according to one version, one of the guards was still in cahoots with the robbers - how else to explain that even the records from the surveillance cameras were gone?.
"Portrait of a Young Man" by Raphael. The fate is unknown since 1945.
"It was not burnt and was not destroyed, but is safe in one of the bank safes," - so enigmatically representative of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the restitution of cultural property Wojciech Kowalski responded to a request about where the "Portrait of a Young Man" Raphael. The painting, confiscated by the Nazis from the legitimate owners, Princes Czartoryski, disappeared after the end of World War II. Kowalski's words sound unconvincing, and rumors go different: the portrait is owned either by a Swiss banker, or by a Russian oligarch, or by a hedge fund manager from the USA ... There were never public renaissance genre paintings, but a sketch of "The Head of a Muse" for a mural "Parnassus" from Stanza della Senyatura in the Vatican to the new owner went for $ 47.9 million (Christie's, 2009).
"Maki" ("Vase with Flowers") by Vincent van Gogh. Stolen in 2010.
Of the 43 security cameras, only 7 worked, alarming was not turned on at all - it's no wonder that Van Gogh's picture was stolen, not at night, as it happens in such cases, and in the morning when the Muhammad Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo was just opened. The authorities suddenly remembered and blocked the stations and airports. Further - even more interesting. At first the police stated that they had allegedly arrested two Italians and the case was closed. Then the statement was denied by the Minister of Culture of Egypt Farooq Hosni, who assured that the canvas was never found. In 2012, British art experts put forward a version that the stolen "Maki" - just a copy, and the original was stolen back in 1978 for a major Egyptian official. The record of the cost of Van Gogh paintings was set 20 years before the abduction of the "Makov", then "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" went under the hammer for $ 82.5 million (Christie's, 1990).
"Christmas with Saint Lawrence and Saint Francis" Caravaggio. Stolen in 1969.
If something criminal happens in the south of Italy, it is most likely the work of the Sicilian Mafia. The picture of Caravaggio, on which the infant Christ is depicted, surrounded by saints, was painted by the artist in 1609, a year before his death. Then the canvas went to Sicily, where for centuries it was kept in the chapel of San Lorenzo in Palermo. On the night of October 18, 1969, the picture was stolen by two unknown persons. Since then, her whereabouts remain a mystery. The most disappointing version is this: the mafiosi hid the canvas on the farm, where he was chewed by pigs and / or rats, and the remains of the canvas were burned. We hope for a happy outcome - and admire the high-precision digital copy, which has so far been installed in the chapel. And the cost of this work can not be compared with anything, since in the foreseeable past the paintings of Caravaggio did not appear on auctions.
"Pigeon with green peas" Pablo Picasso. Stolen in 2010.
Spiderman, Spiderman - so nicknamed the Serbian mountaineer and thief Vieran Tomich, who penetrated the museums and houses of wealthy people, climbing the walls. The loudest thing in his career - a bold robbery of the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris in the spring of 2010. As later confessed to Tomich, who was in the dock, he went to the museum after another picture, but "everything turned out very well". The alarm was on repair, the CCTV camera he was able to disconnect, and the guards were dozing. Tomich strolled about the halls and took something that suited his aesthetic taste - Picasso's painting "Pigeon with green peas" (and Matisse, Braque, Leger and Modigliani). On the question, where is the work, without blinking answers: "Destroyed and thrown away". Fortunately, the fate sold for a record $ 179.4 million (Christie's, 2015) "Algerian Women (version of" About ") was more successful: the last picture from the same name series now belongs to Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim, the former Prime Minister of Qatar.
Two portraits of Jose Capelo by Francis Bacon. Stolen in 2015.
From the friendship with Francis Bacon, Jose Capello has five of his portraits. His treasures, which skyrocketed in value, the Spaniard recklessly kept at home. And if he only had to go to London, how the paintings disappeared. A year later, three were found, police arrested more than ten people, but the case has not yet been solved. Portrait of another friend Bacon, Lucien Freud, a couple of years, led the rating of the most expensive works of art sold at public auctions: a triptych "Three sketches for a portrait of Lucien Freud" purchased for $ 142.4 million (Christie's, 2013).
"Injured table" of Frida Kahlo. The location is unknown since 1955.
How it was possible to steal the "Wounded Table" unnoticed, it's hard to imagine. The work of impressive dimensions (1.2 by 2.4 m) is written on a tree, not on a canvas, so that it can not be cut out of the frame and rolled up into a roll. But the fact remains: the picture, which is called the "Holy Grail" for students of Kalo's creativity, mysteriously disappeared on the way to Moscow. A convinced communist, the artist gave it to the Soviet Union, but our officials did not appreciate the work, categorizing it as "samples of decadent bourgeois art". Anyway, the "wounded table" after the death of Kalo in 1954 managed to reach the exhibition in Warsaw, and then evaporated. Recently, a Mexican art critic has stirred up the world art community, saying that he attacked the trail of the "wounded table". While they are looking for him, a record-worthy work of the artist, whose big retrospective is being successfully held now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the picture "Two Naked in the Woods" remains - the new owner paid $ 8mln for it.
View of Auvergne-sur-Oise by Paul Cezanne. Stolen in 2000.
A pledge of successful abduction - a surprise. For example, New Year's Eve, when no one cares about what's happening in the museum. So decided the robbers, aiming at one of the iconic paintings of Cezanne - "View Over-sur-Oise", and not lost.
The landscape was abducted from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on the night of January 1, 2000.. Without special effects was not done: intruders, after entering the museum, threw a smoke bomb. While protection under the noise of New Year fireworks on the street tried to understand what had happened, the kidnappers and the trail were cold. The most expensive painting for Cezanne today is not a landscape, but a still life: The curtain, a jug and a compote was sold for $ 60.5 million (Sotheby's, 1999).
Source: theartnewspaper.