Art theft

Two found guilty in theft of Maurizio Cattelan’s golden toilet

The Crown Prosecution Service says it is confident that the case “played a part in disrupting a wider crime and money-laundering network”

Thirty five years on from ‘the world’s largest art heist’, how much are the works stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum worth?

From $200m to upwards of $1bn, the estimated value of the 13 works stolen in Boston on 18 March 1990 has varied in the decades since

Member of museum theft ring sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing Warhol and Pollock works

Thomas Trotta was part of a theft ring that nabbed a variety of items, including sports memorabilia and gold nuggets, from museums on the East Coast of the US over two decades

Cattelan gold toilet trial: defendant says he used the loo and it was ‘splendid’

The fully functioning 18-carat gold toilet was removed from an exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan’s work at Blenheim Palace in 2019

Metropolitan Museum repatriates ancient bronze griffin head that was stolen from Greek institution

Per the terms of the Met’s agreement with the Greek government, the cast-bronze antiquity will return to New York next year for a special exhibition

Cattelan's £4.8m gold toilet stolen in five minute raid and split into smaller parts, court hears

The court case of three men charged with the 2019 theft has begun in Oxford, and is expected to last four weeks

Michelangelo Pistoletto unveils his own version of stolen Caravaggio masterpiece in Sicily

Theft from a Baroque oratory remains unsolved after 55 years, sparking countless conspiracy theories

What links Van Gogh, Trump, a golden toilet and Cattelan's $6.2m banana?

This unlikely grouping is part of an astonishing story involving New York’s Guggenheim Museum

‘Everything went wrong’: Warhol prints stolen and damaged in bungled Netherlands heist

Two of the vulnerable works were damaged and abandoned, while two others were apparently too large to fit in the getaway car and so were cut out of their frames

A Banksy work has been stolen in London—again

Two men have appeared in court charged with burglary following the theft of a version of 'Girl with Balloon'

Another object has been stolen from the British Museum—but this time by an artist

Ilê Sartuzi's short-lived heist involving a 17th-century coin draws parallels to the recent scandal over the theft of thousands of items from the museum’s collection

Painting stolen from Chatsworth House 45 years ago discovered at auction

The oil on wood painting by Eramus Quelliness II was taken in a raid in 1979, though the thieves left behind much more valuable works

19th-century book stolen from Brazilian museum in 2008 is located in London and repatriated

The 1823 naturalist tome describes species of monkeys and bats unique to the Amazon

Stolen Italian landscape returned to Oxford's Christ Church Picture Gallery from Romania

Police are appealing for information about two other paintings stolen in the same 2020 burglary

French authorities seize Russian avant-garde paintings believed stolen

The haul includes works purportedly by Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Natalia Goncharova

Two paintings that were stolen from Peruvian church are returned

Prior to their seizure, the paintings had been offered to the auction house Doyle for consignment

The Van Gogh painting that was stolen—and recovered in an Ikea bag—goes on show

Research reveals that the artist began the work as a winter scene and transformed it into a spring landscape

Instagram-famous Australian gallerist charged with nine counts of theft

Tove Langridge faces up to five years in prison if convicted in the criminal case

Booksfeature

Missing Mona Lisa: the story behind the 1911 theft of Leonardo’s masterpiece

The author of a new book tells us why it was stolen and how Picasso got embroiled in the scandal

Hammer-wielding thieves steal $100,000 Chagall print from Manhattan gallery

The theft from Carlton Fine Arts on Madison Avenue has led the gallery’s owner to beef up his security systems, at great expense

British Museum releases further details of independent review into thefts

The review team will now liaise with the police for the criminal investigation

Six paintings stolen from a Dutch town hall left on art detective's doorstep

Arthur Brand, who helped to recover a Van Gogh painting last month, says he was watching a "boring football game" when the surprising delivery was made

Hobby Lobby’s lawsuit against papyrus scholar changes venues

The company’s case against Oxford-based American papyrist Dirk D. Obbink revolves around ancient papyrus fragments it purchased for its Washington, DC institution, the Museum of the Bible

$1.5m bronze Buddha statue stolen from Los Angeles gallery

A single thief allegedly maneuvered the 250-pound sculpture, dating from Japan’s Edo Period, out of the Barakat Gallery’s backyard and into a rental truck

Recovering the stolen Van Gogh: the museum director recalls the emotional moment

Seized in a violent raid in 2020, returned in a blue Ikea bag—now being bought back from the insurer

'Handed over in an Ikea bag': art detective recovers Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum

Three years ago, 'The Parsonage garden at Nuenen in Spring' was taken in a smash-and-grab raid in Laren