Whether real or fictional, thefts of art and artifacts from museums remain an ongoing cultural fixation. We might read about the real-life theft of paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum or watch the planning of a Louvre heist in Lupin with equal amounts of suspense. One actual case of theft from a museum is both more subtle and more brazen than you might expect — the disappearance of hundreds of objects from the British Museum’s collection, which was carried out by a now-former curator there.
Writing at The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead explored the circumstances of how the theft was uncovered — which involved an antiquities dealer named Ittai Gradel purchasing some centuries-old cameos online and gradually discovering that they came from the British Museum’s collection. This eventually led to the firing of curator Peter Higgs, who is believed to have stolen or damaged around 2,000 objects.
The artifacts that Gradel had located are only a fraction of the overall number that went missing. In an update for The Art Newspaper, Martin Bailey provided some news on the museum’s efforts to get the stolen artifacts back. The good news? The museum recently announced that it recovered another 268 items, in addition to the 351 that Gradel returned. The bad news is that over 800 are still unaccounted for.
The Art Newspaper reports that another seven artifacts have been returned to the museum, and that the institution is currently looking into the whereabouts of another 100. The British Museum has also published a guide to the artifacts that are still missing.
Which Art Museums Have Been Hit by Dramatic Heists?
Thefts of famous paintings have been carried out by handymen, phony cops, and a team of armed daredevils.“When we announced the devastating news that objects had been stolen from our collection, people understandably assumed that was it — we were unlikely to ever see more than a handful of them again,” British Museum chair George Osborne told The Art Newspaper. But with hundreds of objects still missing, it raises other questions about where they may have gone — and what their fates might be.
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