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Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft
Simon Houpt
#UA3632
Hardcover, 192 pages; 2006
$15.90
Art theft is big business. There are tens of thousands of missing paintings and sculptures, perhaps more than one hundred thousand. Interpol, the international association of police agencies based in Lyon, France, believes the market for stolen art and antiquities is third on the list of worldwide illicit activities, right behind drugs and arms trading. Estimates range from $1.5 billion to $6 billion annually.
In 2005, thieves with a flat-bed truck entered the grounds of the late Henry Moore's home in Hertfordshire, then somehow snuck away into the night with his Reclining Figure, a bronze sculpture weighing two tons! Museum of the Missing is packed with similarly shocking accounts of invaluable art being stolen all around the world. Arts and culture columnist Simon Houpt presents a riveting, provocative, and richly illustrated history of art theft. From the story (with mug shot!) of the man who snatched the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, to the numerous accounts of art seized by the Nazis in WWII, to the description of an FBI sting operation that recovered a missing Rembrandt painting in 2005--Museum of the Missing will keep historians, crime buffs, and art lovers of all kinds spellbound.
(CH)
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