The relief of the Dutch painter Jan Shonhoven stolen from a Museum in Venlo in March, has managed to be auctioned at Sotheby's, changing the job number and turn it the other side. The fraud was discovered after a successful sale of relief almost 300 thousand dollars

Stolen art, as a rule, it is almost impossible to resell legally — at auctions, in galleries, etc. usually, but not always. Sometimes even such an authoritative organization as the database of stolen works of art art Loss Register and the auction house Sotheby's, you can cheat. So was the case with the work of the Dutch artist Jan Shonhoven (Jan Schoonhoven), stolen from the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo in March of this year. From the Museum under mysterious circumstances lost a total of three works of Shonhoven and one work by a Czech artist Thomas Raylia. Two works by Shonhoven and the work of Raylia were returned to the Amsterdam police as a certain "Ryan L." and here the third work of Shonhoven — relief "R 69-32" — was destined to get to the Sotheby's auction, where it failed to identify the stolen Museum exponat@

Square white relief "R 69-32" consisting of cells and triangular forms made of papier-mache, was established in 1969. In the legacy of Jan Shonhoven, one of the most famous Netherlandish artists, very much like works of papier-mache, hardly distinguishable from each other. The kidnappers of the relief work turned another side, and slightly corrected the number of work (redid the deuce in nine, turning "69-32 R" in "R 69-39"). Then offer a piece to the auction house Sotheby's as a very different work, and relief was adopted for implementation. Experts from the Art Loss Register had warned the auction house that this work is similar to the one that was stolen from a Museum in Venlo, however, and Sotheby's, and the ALR was confused by another number on the back. As a result, the relief of Shonhoven was still put under the hammer for thousands of 182.5 pounds ($285 thousand). Work jointly purchased gallery Borzo Amsterdam and London's Mayor Gallery. The first suspected something was wrong in the Amsterdam expert art of Shonhoven Paul van Rosmalen (Paul van Rosmalen): he realized that the room was changed. After that deal with the work of Shonhoven, of course, was suspended. Meanwhile, the collector Theo Manders, to whom the theft was owned by exhibited in the Museum Venlo relief "R 69-32" and three other works received compensation for them from the insurance company in the amount of 1.1 million euros.

the Material was prepared by Maria Onuchin, AI    

Sources: ger.nl, artdaily.com, artinvestment.ru