A masterpiece by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) that was recently restituted to the heirs of a Jewish collecting couple could fetch up to $45 million (£37.4 million) at Sotheby’s. It is one of the most important works by the artist ever to appear at auction as a rare example of his early style.
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It has been announced that over the course of this year, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has seized 27 antiquities from the Metropolitan Museum of Art which collectively are valued at more than $13 million.
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Dutch police have arrested two men after a shocking daylight heist at TEFAF, the renowned European fine art fair in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
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Last week in a ceremony at the Italian Embassy in Madrid, two objects were returned to their rightful country of ownership, Italy. The discovery and restitution of these items was made possible by collaboration between cultural heritage police units in both countries.
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Saturday, (21 August) marked 60 years since Francisco Goya’s (1746-1828) portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen from the National Gallery in London by Kempton Bunton, a taxi driver from Newcastle who stashed the painting in his wardrobe. The theft became one of the most infamous art heists in British history.
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An “art lover” builder has confessed to stealing three priceless artworks in an audacious theft from the National Gallery in Athens nearly a decade ago. This week police recovered the works by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) wrapped in plastic sheets in a gorge south-east of Athens.
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Last week, the International Criminal Police (INTERPOL) released a new app – called ID-Art – which allows users to check and even report stolen artworks using just their smart phone.
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It was revealed last week that an ancient Roman marble statue, which was stolen from the Villa Marini Dettina archaeological site near Rome in 2011, was located in an antique shop in Brussels earlier this year.
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Police have arrested a man suspected of stealing artworks by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Frans Hals (1582-1666) during the night-time raids of two Dutch museums.
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Three Old Master paintings of “very high value” were stolen from a University of Oxford gallery this week. The audacious heist follows a spate of smaller gallery thefts across the UK in the last few months, including the attempted burglary of Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. Continue reading
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