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August 18, 1999
CONTENTS:
- Thieves lift Raoul Dufy artworks from gallery
- Need Info in Washington DC (Kevin Purpgoof)
- introduction of art-protect
- MUSEUM SECURITY CALLED A FINE ART (Met's Harold Holcer and A.L.R.'s Anna Kisluk opinions)
Thieves lift Raoul Dufy artworks from gallery
Saturday, August 14, 1999
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS -- Thieves have stolen a private collection of 19 works by French artist Raoul Dufy from the cellar of a Parisian gallery, police said yesterday.
The works -- five oil paintings, four drawings and 10 watercolors -- were taken from the gallery in the upscale 8th arrondissement sometime between June 22 and July 6.
Police said the lock on the cellar's steel-enforced door seemed to have been faulty, allowing the thieves to break in easily. The collection of the early 20th-century artist's work, worth an estimated $500,000, belonged to a Belgian art lover, whose identity was not released.
The robbery was discovered when a gallery staff member went to the cellar to photograph the collection.
From: Purpgoof@aol.com
Subject: Need Info in Washington DC
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Is there a Museum of Arts and Sciences in Washington, DC? If so, does anyone know of or heard about anyone selling off Lithographs of Van Gogh paintings? Recently, here in Rochester, NY, as a matter of fact it was yesterday, it was brought to my attention that a street vendor was selling Lithographs of Van Goghs work. This particular vendor had mentioned that these Lithos had come from the above mentioned museum. Any info would be appreciated and I'll keep you informed if any information arises.
Thank you
Kevin
Date sent: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:19:11 +0200
From: art-protect gmbh tefaf-artprotect@bluewin.ch
To: securma@museum-security.org
Subject: introduction of art-protect
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To my surprise I have noticed your listing of art recovering organizations on the internet all over the world but without naming our organization. ART-PROTECT is probably the worlds only on-line database listing all kind of lost art and of value. Every object is described in four languages ( German, French, Italian and English) and a photograph. A special search engine will help to find the particular piece of thousands one is looking for. All advertisements concerning lost and stolen art to be registered are free of charge. The access code to enter the database costs CHF 1'000.-- entrance fee and CHF 250.-- for the annual period for un unlimited access of all staff members of a company.
Our address is:
ART-PROTECT GMBH. Netzibodenstrasse 23 C CH - 4133
PRATTELN / Switzerland
Tel: ++41 61 813 09 05 Fax.:++41 61 813 09 05
Internet: http://www.art-protect.ch
Director: Mr. Alexander E.R. Triebold
e-mail:tefaf-artprotect@bluewin.ch
with kind regards
A. Triebold
MUSEUM SECURITY CALLED A FINE ART
(Met's Harold Holcer and A.L.R.'s Anna Kisluk opinions)
By MEGAN TURNER
New York Post
YOU'D be hard pressed to catch a thief as devastatingly handsome as Pierce Brosnan's billionaire financier in "The Thomas Crown Affair," but the discrepancies between life and art don't end there.
In the Manhattan-centric remake of the 1968 film, art-lover Thomas Crown walks off with a $100 million Monet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art during an intricately planned heist.
But, in reality, the Museum Mile's most famous gallery has never been burgled and, spokesman Harold Holcer insists, is never likely to be. The Met's security measures are a closely guarded secret and "Crown" director John McTiernan was even refused permission to film inside the museum, forcing his team to re-create the distinctive lobby in a Yonkers studio.
"We thought it was inappropriate," Holcer says. "The suggestion that such a thing could happen in our galleries was ridiculous and a little bit misleading. But we're confident viewers will be able to tell the difference between fiction and truth. Fiction is fiction, and security is security, and the two are not comparable."
New York's large museums have a reputation for effective security, although law-enforcement officers and art experts caution that no system is foolproof.
The city's museums are loathe to discuss their security, worried about giving thieves ideas.
"It's a common-sense precaution that you do not reveal publicly what steps you've taken to protect your art," says Anna Kisluk, director of the Art Loss Register's New York office. There's another major difference between the fiction of "The Thomas Crown Affair" and reality.
Crown's motivation for stealing the Monet is to pierce the ennui of his well-heeled existence. It's a crime committed for love, not money. And he has no interest in selling the painting.
The notion that art robberies are commissioned by big-time crooks intent on filling their lairs with beauty - such as Dr. No did with a Goya portrait in the James Bond film - is a popular myth. But, according to art world insiders, major heists committed by knowledgeable art connoisseurs are rarer than Impressionist masterpieces.
"Most art heists are done by people who don't know anything about art," Kisluk says. "No one like [the Thomas Crown character] has ever been identified by law enforcement officers." There are, however, plenty of garden-variety burglars looking to make a buck by purloining paintings.
Interpol estimates the annual trade in stolen or looted art is somewhere between $2 billion and $6 billion. The recovery rate is not encouraging - about 10 to 15 percent.
But according to the Art Loss Register, which keeps a database of more than 100,000 missing artworks and identifies stolen pieces as they appear on the market, the chance of recovery rises dramatically if the painting is a famous one. "A lot of what's stolen aren't masterpieces," Kisluk says. "But the paintings that are well-documented are very difficult to move. Much of the time the thieves realize very little of the actual value of the item they've stolen because they have no idea what it's worth." One of the best examples of this is the 1945 theft by an American GI of two paintings by Albrecht Duerer, valued at $8 million, from a castle in Germany. He sold the works for $450.
Although it may take years, most well-known artworks are eventually recovered.
In 1994, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was stolen from Norway's National Art Museum by two brazen thieves who used a ladder to climb in through a window and left behind a postcard saying, "Thanks for the poor security."
The piece was recovered three months later in a sting operation that included assistance from Scotland Yard.
A Monet and eight other Impressionist paintings were stolen from the Marmottan Museum in Paris in 1985, but all were recovered within five years.
But the biggest art heist in American history remains unsolved. On March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers and wearing false mustaches, tied up guards at the Gardner Museum in Boston and hauled off 13 masterpieces worth about $300 million.
The investigation is continuing.
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