Art Crimes

Police from five different countries collaborated to recover the stolen artifacts.

Authorities Recover 10,000 Artifacts Stolen by International Antiquities Trafficking Ring

The organized crime group had connections across Italy, Britain, Germany, France and Serbia

A golden ring once given as a present by the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered by a Dutch "art detective" nearly 20 years after it was stolen from Britain's Oxford University.

Art Detective Tracks Down Oscar Wilde's Stolen Friendship Ring

Authorities previously believed the ring, taken from Oxford in 2002, was melted down by an individual unaware of its true significance

An unknown thief stole the historic rifle in a brazen 1971 heist.

Revolutionary War Rifle Stolen 50 Years Ago Recovered at Barn Sale

The long rifle, made by master gunsmith Johann Christian Oerter, will go on view at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia

Patriots toppled the statue in July 1776, but British Loyalists rescued and hid some of the fragments

You Could Own an Amputated Arm From the George III Statue Toppled at Bowling Green

The 18th-century lead fragment was unearthed in a Connecticut resident's garden in 1991

Lord Elgin is a controversial figure accused by many—including the Greek government—of looting valuable artifacts from the city of Athens

Newly Discovered Treasures Came From the Same Sunken Ship That Carried the Controversial 'Elgin Marbles'

The "Mentor," a vessel owned by the notorious Lord Elgin, sank in 1802 while carrying panels and sculptures looted from the Parthenon

Picture taken at the unveiling of the Totem Pole in May 2017.

Thieves Return Hand Stolen From Montreal Totem Pole, With an Apology Note

'After we realized what [the artwork] stood for and represented for so many people, we immediately felt sick to our stomach,' the letter reads

Help Find the Owners of More Than 100 Recovered Artworks

Stolen around Los Angeles in 1993, the paintings and antiques were recently recovered by LAPD when some were brought to an auction house

Exterior view of the Führerbau photographed in September, 1938.

Investigation Identifies Nazi-Looted Art Later Ransacked From Hitler’s Headquarters

Near the end of WWII, Munich civilians plundered food, liquor, furnishings and some 700 works of art, most of which wer stolen property, from the Führerbau

The perpetrator rips pages in half horizontally

A Literary Vandal Is Ripping Pages Out of Books and Putting Them Back on Shelves

The so-called 'book ripper' has targeted more than 100 volumes at a library and charity bookshop in the English town of Herne Bay

The nine sculpted heads were recovered at Heathrow Airport in 2002

Hundreds of Artifacts Looted From Iraq and Afghanistan to Be Repatriated

The trove, currently stored at the British Museum for safekeeping, includes 4th-century Buddhist sculpture fragments and 154 Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets

Researchers extracted paint and canvas fiber samples from a known forgery supposedly dating to 1886 but actually created during the 1980s.

Cold War Nuclear Bomb Tests Are Helping Researchers Identify Art Forgeries

Traces of carbon-14 isotopes released by nuclear testing enable scientists to date paintings created post-World War II

The Bible is similar to one brought to North America by Pilgrims traveling aboard the Mayflower

17th-Century Bible Stolen From Pittsburgh Library Recovered in the Netherlands

The 404-year-old religious text was one of more than 300 artifacts stolen from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library over a two-decade period

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand has been trying to find "Buste de Femme" for years.

'Indiana Jones of the Art World' Finds Picasso Stolen 20 Years Ago From Saudi Billionaire

The painting had been ‘used as collateral, popping up in a drug deal here, four years later in an arms deal there,’ says Arthur Brand

The 13 missing works are valued at more than $500 million.

Mobster Who May Be the Last Living Person With Knowledge of Gardner Museum Heist Set to Be Released From Prison

Octogenarian Robert Gentile has long maintained his innocence, but investigators believe otherwise

A young boy talks to U.S. Army military police as the exhibit visited Toledo, Ohio.

Americans Flocked to See This Controversial Exhibit of Berlin’s Art Treasures in the Wake of World War II

Discovered in a salt mine in Nazi Germany, these artworks toured the United States in a questionable move that raised serious ethical concerns

Artifacts on display at Don Miller's farm in 2014. For more than seven decades, Miller unearthed cultural artifacts from North America, South America, Asia, the Caribbean, and in Indo-Pacific regions such as Papua New Guinea.

The F.B.I. Is Trying to Return Thousands of Stolen Artifacts, Including Native American Burial Remains

Five years after the F.B.I.'s six-day raid on a rural Indiana home, the agency is turning to the public for help identifying and repatriating the artifacts

Adolf Hitler's signature pictured on June 11, 2015 in the Weidler auction house in Nuremberg, southern Germany.

There Is a Market for Artworks by Hitler. Many of Them Are Fakes

More than 60 works suspected to be forgeries attributed to the Führer have been seized from a German auction house

The painting was donated to the church by a former Belgian senator 16 years ago.

Possible Michelangelo Painting Disappears From a Belgian Church Days Before Authentication

Pastor Jan Van Raemdonck had observed similarities between the canvas and a 1538 sketch by the Old Master

The predator and her prey

Very Naughty Kitty Slashed 17th-Century Portrait

Apparently Padme is not a fan of Baroque artist John Michael Wright

The virtual museum features seven rooms focused on themes such as correspondence, music and flirtation.

Explore Vermeer’s Surviving Paintings, Together After All This Time, in One Virtual Exhibition

The augmented reality “Meet Vermeer” experience details the Dutch Old Master’s artistic style, life and enduring legacy

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