Looted art

Maqdala shield to be repatriated to Ethiopia

Withdrawn from auction in February, the shield will make a stop at the Toledo Museum of Art before going on public display at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa

Van Gogh Museum exposes three early fakes

A vase of summer sunflowers in a late autumn scene proved a giveaway

'The Lovers': the key painting that the National Gallery couldn't track down for its Van Gogh exhibition

Seized by Hitler's deputy, Hermann Göring, the picture disappeared in mysterious circumstances during the Second World War—but could it survive?

Officials in New York return antiquities worth $14m to Pakistan

Some of the 133 objects being repatriated are associated with the antiquities smugglers Subhash Kapoor and Richard Beale

Italy stops loans to Minneapolis amid ancient marble row

Dispute centres on the Doryphoros statue, which Italy believes was looted in the 1970s

Art Institute of Chicago fights for possession of Egon Schiele portrait

Civil action for return of looted Schiele painting dismissed but criminal case looms

FBI returns 22 looted artefacts to Japan

A haul of historic objects looted following the Battle of Okinawa make their way home after almost 80 years

Auctioneer withdraws looted shield from sale after restitution request from Ethiopian government

Ethiopian Heritage Authority asked to contact vendor to request restitution of battle trophy taken following British expeditionary force's punitive siege of Maqdala in 1868

Investigation by Portuguese newspaper reveals grappling between politicians and museums over future of Kwer’ata Re’esu

Disagreement centred over whether the painting, looted in 1868 and later sold to a private collector in Portugal, should be bought by the government and returned to Ethopia

Princeton University Art Museum identifies 16 artefacts linked to alumnus and alleged smuggler

Edoardo Almagià, who graduated from Princeton University in 1973, has been connected to a range of antiquities currently in the museum's collection

Unravelling the Kwer’ata Re’esu mystery: experts say the painter could be Iberian, Flemish—or German

The painting had been looted at the battle of Maqdala in 1868, but is now in the possession of a Portuguese collector

Sacred Ethiopian tablet looted by the British at the battle of Maqdala 155 years ago is returned in London church service

Restitution of tabot, which was bought by an art scholar for this purpose, puts spotlight on the British Museum to return 11 in its possession

Exclusive: first colour photographs shed fresh light on Ethiopia's most treasured icon and its looting by an agent of the British Museum

An Art Newspaper investigation uncovers new details on the infamous seizure in 1868 by Richard Holmes of a 500-year-old painting of Christ, the Kwer’ata Re’esu, which never reached the London institution

The Met and Yemeni government reach agreement for long-term display and care of two ancient sculptures

The artefacts, dating from the third millenium BC, will remain in New York as Yemen’s civil war drags on

Dutch museum looted by Napoleon does not seek restitution

An exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague has revealed that the Dutch are still missing 67 paintings looted by the French in Napoleonic times

Mauritshuis show looks to find a future for objects with a dubious past

Loot—Ten Stories, opening this week, explores new ways to represent looted objects after they have been repatriated

Manhattan District Attorney's Office seizes $5m bronze bust in Turkish repatriation sting

The sculpture, which depicts a daughter of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, is the second out-of-state item to be seized by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit

Italy seeks the return of seven possibly looted works from the Louvre

The museum's director says works with dubious provenance are 'a stain in the collections of the Louvre'

Art marketinterview

'The most illiquid property you can have is a Greek vase': Vincent Geerling on the challenges facing the antiquities trade

The chairman of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art reflects on an increasingly scrutinised industry as the organisation marks its 30th anniversary

Two looted antiquities seized in New York will be returned to Iraq

The figurines, which were looted from the ancient city of Uruk, belong to one of the oldest civilisations on earth

France's long-awaited restitution policy is finally here

Guidelines for returning objects looted from former colonies and during the Nazi period are laid out in a report commissioned by Emmanuel Macron and written by former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez

Germans falter on Benin bronzes’ return to Nigeria

Doubts surface in media over Nigeria’s museum infrastructure

More than 1,000 objects in the Met’s collection linked to alleged traffickers and looters, investigation finds

A new report claims New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has many items in its collection with major provenance issues

Smithsonian to display 77 looted artefacts from Yemen in shared stewardship agreement

The artefacts will go on view at the National Museum of Asian Art, rather than be returned to Yemen, due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis there

Artefacts in Swiss museums were looted from the Kingdom of Benin, new report says

Many of the works investigated show a direct link to the violent 1897 raid by British forces, and may lead to the transfer of objects to Nigeria

Authorities in New York return 14 looted artefacts valued at $2.5m to Italy, including a black-figure hydria by the renowned Priam Painter

The repatriated artefacts were looted by an international network of “high-profile antiquities traffickers and smugglers, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office

Virgin Mary and Christ diptych, stolen during Second World War, returned to Poland

The paintings, from the workshop of the Flemish master Dieric Bouts, were transferred from the Museo Provincial de Pontevedra in Spain to Gołuchów Castle

Looted archaeological artefacts worth more than $20m returned to Italy

The 60 objects included some that had been on display at the Metropolitan Museum and several that had been bought by billionaire collector Michael Steinhardt

US government returns looted sarcophagus to Egypt

A trafficked coffin that may have belonged to an ancient priest has been returned

Cologne museum to transfer 92-strong Benin bronze collection back to Nigeria

The Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum is the latest Western institution to return its collection of artefacts looted from Nigeria in the late-19th century