On this week’s art crime blotter: Turkish police seized Muammar Gaddafi’s $10-million dagger, “some feminists” attacked a mural of Bettie Page, and a pair of Spanish thieves amassed a trove of 10,000 artifacts.
Art Theft
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a Chinese artist was reprimanded for his “sexual calligraphy” videos, a $20-million trove of stolen art was seized in Istanbul, and a relic containing a drop of Pope John Paul II’s blood was stolen from Cologne Cathedral.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a solid gold and diamond-encrusted statue of an eagle was stolen, a subversive Malaysian street artist was charged with “violating multimedia laws,” and a gnome sculpture went missing.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: Spanish police arrested seven people for Francis Bacon heist, a Picasso thief preyed on a Chelsea gallery, and an artist lost his head after someone stole his guillotine sculpture.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: an SFMOMA café started selling half-baked copies of art-themed desserts, torch-carrying protesters raided Stonehenge, and cops got in trouble for a making a sand sculpture of a nude murder victim.
Old Master Paintings Snatched from Verona Turn Up in a Forest in Ukraine
After six months, 17 Old Master paintings stolen from Verona’s Museo di Castelvecchio have turned up on an island in Ukraine.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a psychedelic zebra sculpture was stolen and recovered, an arts organization shuttered following an embezzlement fiasco and lye attack, and vandals smashed a David Bowie painting.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: an MFA student’s sculpture about campus gun laws violated campus gun laws, collector Aby Rosen forked over $7 million in unpaid taxes on art, and the painter of the Donald Trump micropenis portrait was attacked by one of the candidate’s supporters.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: artists demand their work back from LA’s bankrupt Ace Gallery, a billionaire collector realizes she’s been missing a Picasso since 2009, and art dealer Perry Rubenstein is arrested and charged with embezzlement.
France Lost Track of 23,000 State-Owned Artworks and Historic Objects
Nearly 23,000 works of state-owned art are missing in France and its overseas territories, lost over time from museums, town halls, and major institutions largely due to poor documentation and even theft.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: police took down a noose art installation, the leader of a Chinese antiquities looting ring was sentenced to death, and someone stole a public sculpture of a porcupine.
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: seven Andy Warhol prints went missing from a museum, two men were arrested as authorities recovered a stolen Edvard Munch, and a Russian cultural critic was murdered.