Ten most wanted works of art
ARTinvestment.RU   29 августа 2008

Recently, the website of the newspaper The Wall Street Journal published a list of the most expensive works of art, whose whereabouts are unknown. Director of production company The Art Loss Register explains how these masterpieces are gone

Company The Art Loss Register is looking for missing and stolen art. Its database of more than 180 thousand works, which had lost about Interpol, FBI, museums, collectors, etc. In the list of missing the product of the number 572 (!) Creations of Pablo Picasso (Pablo Picasso), 169 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Pierre-Auguste Renoir) and 16 - Caravaggio (Caravaggio). Recently, the production director of The Art Loss Register Ueykott Laurel (Laurel Waycott) specifically for the newspaper The Wall Street Journal commented on the list of the most expensive works of art at large. ARTinvestment.ru leads her comments, as well as some interesting details.

1. Jan Vermeer. Concert. 1664-1667. Oil on canvas

painting valued at more than U.S. $ 100 million

Where and when kidnapped: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), 18 March 1990.

18 March 1990 occurred very loud art theft in history. Of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) in Boston robbers, entered the building disguised as police officers, made thirteen paintings, among them «Storm in the Sea of Galilee» Rembrandt (Rembrandt), «Do Tortoni» Édouard Manet (Edouard Manet) and «Concerto» Jan Vermeer (Jan Vermeer). Stealing Vermeer paintings mourn the hardest hit, because only 35 known paintings by this artist. Those who return the picture of the value and safety, promised a reward of $ 5 million cost of all the works is estimated at 300 million

2. Paul Cezanne. A boy in a red waistcoat. 1894-1895. Oil on canvas

picture of Paul Cézanne (Paul Cézanne) and other works of art, stolen along with it, is estimated at U.S. $ 166 million

Where and when kidnapped: Collection E.ZH. Byurlya (Zurich), 10 February 2008

Cloth «Boy in the red jackets» stole more recently - on 10 February this year. The painting was part of a collection of Emil George Byurlya (EmileGeorgeBurhle), which is one of the world's largest private collections of Impressionist paintings. Painting «Boy in the red jackets» was in a little museum in Zurich, where the collection Byurlya, while several armed men in masks are not broke there in broad daylight and not have claimed it vosvoyasi, took pictures at the same time, Vincent van Gogh (VincentvanGogh), Edgar Degas ( EdgarDegas) and Claude Monet (ClaudeMonet). Works by Monet and Van Gogh were later found in a car parked near the museum, but the paintings Degas and Cezanne still could not be found.

3. Byzantine cross. V century BC Gold, pearls, precious and semiprecious stones

Total value of items stolen from the Cathedral of Tournai, estimated at 38 million dollars

Where and when kidnapped: The Cathedral of Notre Dame (Tour), 18 Feb., 2008

Shortly after the kidnapping of famous artists from the museum in Zurich to happen, another loud theft. On 18 February this year in the Belgian city of Tournai Cathedral, raided two armed robbers in a wig and took many precious items, including chalices for communion, episcopal rings and ornate cross, made by Byzantine craftsmen in Vveke. Unfortunately, criminals has long been understood that steal from churches and cathedrals, just because they are protected is much worse than the museums. Laurel Ueykott afraid that Byzantine cross to break into pieces, then remove all the stones and pearls, and gold - remelting. After all, art thieves are rarely sophisticated intellectuals. Many of them do not understand the artistic value of the stolen items, and describe a masterpiece of Byzantine masters other than «a pile of gold», they are not able to.

4. Vincent van Gogh. Exit procession of the Reformed Church in Nyuenene. 1884-1885. Oil on canvas

Artwork «Exit procession of the Reformed Church in Nyuenene» and canvas «View of the Sea in Scheveningen», stolen along with it, is estimated at U.S. $ 30 million

Where and when kidnapped: Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), 7 December 2002

Unlike robbery, which was discussed above, theft of early works by Vincent van Gogh was committed, that is, the old-fashioned. No one broke into the museum in broad daylight and threatened to not frighten weapons inspector. The perpetrators entered the building at night. Early in the morning, the museum discovered the loss of two works - paintings «Exit procession of the Reformed Church in Nyuenene» and «View of the Sea in Scheveningen». One of the museum's windows were smashed, and the wall was found trehmetrovaya stairs. Soon, the criminals have found, but the whereabouts of paintings are still unknown.

5. Michelangelo Caravaggio. Christmas with the Holy. And St. Francis. Lawrence. 1608. Oil on canvas

The work is estimated at 20 million dollars

Where and when kidnapped: The Chapel of San Lorenzo (Palermo), 18 October 1969

Almost trehmetrovoe canvas Caravaggio - the second in the list of TOP-10 piece stolen from the church. Robbers barbarically treated with the picture: in order to extract it from the gilded frame, they used the razor. Some say that the kidnapping - the work of a Sicilian Mafiosi, while others argue that the masterpiece was stolen by petty criminals, who, incidentally, still have to transmit a picture all-mafia.

6. Pablo Picasso. Head women. 1938. Oil on canvas

Estimated cost of the painting - more than 8 million dollars

Where and when kidnapped: yacht off the coast of Antibes (French Riviera), 23 March 1999.

Pablo Picasso is undoubtedly the most popular artist of the robbers. The list of stolen works, compiled by The Art Loss Register, about 600 of his works. Picasso was an incredibly prolific artist: he has left almost 2 thousand paintings, drawings 7 thousand, 18 thousand more than a thousand prints and sculptures. Of course, not all of them familiar to the audience. For example, the «head women» was acquired directly from the artist's collection and has never exhibited in museums. It hung in the cabin of a yacht owned by a multimillionaire from Saudi Arabia, big fan of Picasso. They say that the picture depicted MAARIV Dora (Dora Maar), one of the most famous female artist.

7. Claude Monet. Beach in Purville. 1882. Oil on canvas

The work is estimated at 7 million dollars

Where and when kidnapped: The National Museum of Poland (Poznan), 19 September 2000.

The criminals stole the painting by Claude Monet, good laugh at the Museum staff: a masterpiece of carved frames, they replaced it plohonkoy reproduction. Submenu observed on 19 September, and precisely when the theft occurred, no one knows.

8. Paul Cezanne. Near Auvers-sur-Oise. 1879-1882. Oil on canvas

The value of the painting - 6 million

Where and when kidnapped: Eshmola Museum (Oxford), 31 December 1999.

Criminals like to do their dirty deed in the holidays. For example, already mentioned paintings Vermeer, Rembrandt and Monet stolen in Boston the night after St. Patrick's Day, when the whole city, where many immigrants live from Ireland and the rest after the noisy celebrations. A landscape of Cezanne stolen from the Oxford Museum Eshmola in the New Year's Eve! While residents of the city allowed fireworks, noting the new millennium, a thief got into the museum on the rope ladder, threw a smoke bomb into the room, so that cameras were unable to «see», and they took the canvas of French post disappeared into the darkness.

9. Henry Moore. Polulezhaschaya figure. 1969-1970. Bronze

The sculpture is estimated at U.S. $ 5.2 million

Where and when kidnapped: Henry Moore Foundation in IRA-Hedhem, county Hertfordshir, 15 December 2005.

Hard to believe that someone could decide to steal a great thing - the sculpture of the famous Englishman Henry Moore (Henry Moore) weighs much as two tons! Robbers had brought into the territory of the fund truck, where they are using the hoisting mechanism loaded masterpiece. The chances that the product will ever find are small: In recent years, many criminals have been re-fuse to metal sculpture . The market price of the Henry Moore - more than 5 million, and remelting it, thieves will have a maximum of 5-6 thousand

10. Gustav Klimt. Female portrait. Approx. 1916. Oil on canvas

painting valued at $ 4 million

Where and when kidnapped: Gallery Ricci Oddi (Piacenza), 18 February 1997.

Where is the theft was committed, the gallery Ricci Oddi in the Italian city of Piacenza was closed for reconstruction. Therefore, the guards did not immediately realize that the picture of Klimt (Gustav Klimt) disappeared: they thought that it simply be moved to storage. Theft has been an incredibly ingenious way: the offender climbed onto the roof, dormer window and opened ... «vyudil» picture using fishing lines. Recall that at the moment, Gustav Klimt is the author of the most expensive works of art: billionaire Ronald Lauder (Ronald Lauder) in 2006, bought it «Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer» for U.S. $ 135 million

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: online.wsj.com , artinvestment.ru