Art Crimes

See L.A.'s Strangest Sculpture Shine Bright Once Again

Built in the 1970s, the Triforium was designed to sync light and music but the costly venture was ahead of its time

During World war II, the original Monuments Men rescued more than five million works of art, including Jan and Hubert van Eyck's 1432 "Ghent Altarpiece"

British Army Revives Monuments Men to Salvage Art in War-Torn Countries

The 15-person squad, formed to combat loss of cultural heritage in the Middle East, will specialize in art crime, engineering and archaeology

Watch This $1.4 Million Banksy Painting Shred Itself As Soon As It's Sold

The street artist hid a built-in shredder in the frame of the artwork when he created it in 2006

The unabashed depiction of violence seen in Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes" underscores its creator’s bestial inclinations

Caravaggio May Have Died of Infected Sword Wound, Not Syphilis

The Italian Old Master had a notoriously mercurial temperament and was forced to flee Rome in 1606 after killing his rival in a duel

Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen, Preparatory sketch with a drawn frame for an illustration of the "Comedy Les Moissonneurs," 1768

Cornelius Wasn’t the Only Gurlitt Sibling to Inherit Nazi-Looted Art

Nicoline Benita Renate Gurlitt received 18 works from her father’s trove of stolen art, and four of these works were just returned to their rightful owners

Egon Schiele, "Woman Hiding Her Face," 1912

63 Works By Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele Are at the Center of the Latest Nazi-Looted Art Dispute

The German Lost Art Foundation removed the artworks from its database, suggesting they were saved by a collector's relatives rather than seized by Nazis

Image of the 12th-century Buddha statue

Crime-Fighting Art Expert Helps Bring Stolen Buddha Statue Back to India

The statue comes home 57 years ago after being stolen

Circumstantial evidence links Rita and Jerry Alter to the 1985 heist.

Did This Couple Steal a $160 Million de Kooning?

The Thanksgiving snapshot places Jerry and Rita Alter in Tucson, Arizona, just a day before the 1985 heist

The sculpture of St. George before and after

Restorationist Botches 16th-Century Spanish Statue of Saint

Reports indicate a local priest hired an art teacher to restore the polychromatic wooden statue, with cartoonish results

An authentic copy of a letter written by Christopher Columbus as displayed at the Vatican. The United States is returning to the Vatican Library a letter written by Christopher Columbus in 1493 announcing his discovery of the New World that was stolen and replaced with a forgery.

Stolen Christopher Columbus Letter Returned to Vatican, But Mystery Persists

The letter, which had been printed in 1493, was replaced with a convincing fake—and investigators still don’t know who committed the crime

Works by artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde and Ernest Kirchner were featured in both the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition and the 1938 British show

How the Brits Refuted Nazi Germany’s ‘Degenerate Art' Exhibition

The 1938 show celebrated works by German Expressionists, defended artists on world stage

Theories on the painting's fate include destruction by fire, earthquake, and gnawing rats in an abandoned barn

New Clues Emerge in Search for Stolen Caravaggio

The nativity scene taken from Sicilian chapel in 1969 may have ended up in Switzerland

"Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan" by Ilya Repin

Man Attacks Ivan the Terrible Painting, Blames Vodka

The painting has been a focal point of recent debate around the notorious tsar’s image

With fingers intertwined and mouths gleefully thrown open, the three maidens dance around the Art Nouveau sculpture by Walter Schott.

The Lost Maidens of Berlin

A decades-long quest for one of the most intriguing artworks looted by the Nazis leads to the courtyard of a posh hotel in the German countryside

New Court at the Hague Will Deal Exclusively with Art Disputes

Cases brought before the Court of Arbitration for Art will be decided by specialist art lawyers

Digital Forensics Reconstructs Seven Lost Masterpieces

Artwork by Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet and more have been painstakingly remade by Factum Arte for a new television series

The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist

Ancient Statue Destroyed by ISIS Resurrected in London—With a Twist

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz has created a reproduction of the statue using 10,500 date syrup cans

Artifacts Stolen in Massive Archaeological Theft Recovered in Canterbury

Police have recovered most of the 2,000 coins, bones, beads and other items lifted from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust in January

Undated photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows fake Native American styled-jewelry seized by federal officials during a 2015 investigation in New Mexico.

Investigators Crack Down on Fraudulent Native American Jewelry

In April, Albuquerque jewelry dealer Nael Ali is set to be sentenced under the 1935 Indian Arts and Crafts Act

To make it easier for those in the U.S. and in Germany to trace the history of World War II-era artworks, the Smithsonian and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation created the German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program for Museum Professionals (PREP).

How U.S. and German Art Experts Are Teaming Up to Solve Nazi-Era Mysteries

Specialists in WWII art loss and restitution discuss provenance research

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