it seems crazy to me to steal a famous painting from a museum. the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen, and the transaction would be super high risk. so many easier crimes to commit.
The numbers are higher than you'd expect. The trade in illegal (and so high rarity and limited access) goods is ongoing and flourishing via the use of third party intermediaries like free port systems [1] as well as networks of morally grey curatorial and preservation staff. Several notable archaeological "missing links" of the past few years came from said staff mediating access to private collections of undescribed provenance.
I don't understand why anyone would want to buy something outside of its legal socio-economic context, when that thing's entire value is derived from that context and is otherwise worth very little intrinsically based purely on aesthetic value.
Any market value it sells for is then based on some shared mental deficiency which prevents people from understanding that.
> the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen
You only need one.
With something like this I imagine you could hold on to it for years or even a lifetime waiting for the right connection to come along. Maybe some of them are even commissioned or pre-sold.
I can’t say I know anyone with stolen art, but over my lifetime I’ve known people across a range of wealth classes who got a thrill out of acquiring and owning something that was risky contraband.
I know someone in LA with a piece like this. I was invited with a couple of close friends to their house to view it. This person didn't buy it, though, they took it with their own hands (and explained how simple it was). There were four of these pieces made. I'm pretty certain one is on public display. I don't know about the other two.
I always wondered if these sorts of people actually existed, with a Mona Lisa tucked away in a secret room, or something. And it turns out, yes, they really do.
If you can wait out the statute of limitations you can of course sell it. It seems that in France that is not a thing in stolen art from a public collection
Or, since it’s a Renoir, maybe they were planning to distribute them as punishment.
“Thought you were going up in the world, did you Salvo? Oh no, no Armand Guillaumin for you. The boss ain’t pleased and he wants you to know about it. One more screwup and you’ll end up with a face like that”
From the documentaries I've watched it's usually the other way around. There's either already a known buyer, or the thief has someone in their circles that already knows how to sell it. So there's a middleman between already trusted entities.
There is specific Italian law about return of art. This would normally apply to people who stole the art but a careful lawyer could use this law to negotiate a reduced punishment for organized crime charges. If the art theft is described as a part of a larger criminal enterprise, then the return of that art could trigger a 2/3 reduction in punishment. See below (translated by google).
"is committed by the person who has collaborated in identifying the co-conspirators or has ensured evidence of the crime or has effectively worked to prevent the criminal activity from being carried to further consequences or has recovered or had recovered the cultural property subject to the crime (penalty reduced from one third to two thirds)."
Maybe I've seen too many movies—but you can now sell fakes of those paintings to all dozen of your customers (so long as the customers keep their purchase secret from the other purchasers).
> the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen
Right, but what about your local brick dealer who has 10-50K to waste on whatever? Definitely way more common and easier than you think to unload these sort of things, once you go down in price a lot because of the circumstances.
There are some “criminals” and criminal gangs and such, but I think the increase we have seen is due to Russia, Iran, and others who are giving extra resources and intelligence to some of these groups to deprive western institutions of their cultural heritage as part of the “hybrid war”.
Notice how things aren’t being stolen at this magnitude in China? Japan? If we’re Russian or Iranian for example I think this would be a great strategy if you view yourself at a civilizational war. Most of Europe is still asleep or in denial.
> Notice how things aren’t being stolen at this magnitude in China
Stealing from a Chinese museum would be extremely difficult. Cameras and security staff monitor exhibits during the day, and even after hours, extensive surveillance everywhere, makes it hard to get away unnoticed.
The risk is simply too high
"It was through interrogation work that investigators were able to get the receiver of the stolen goods to admit that he had indeed taken possession of the paintings."
Humans are always the hole in the security you build, no matter how good the wall is.
It was an "organized gang" who already had a police tracking GPS on their vehicle from another criminal investigation
> In addition to DNA, the investigators were also able to benefit from a happy combination of circumstances since “the burglars, after abandoning in the hinterland, near the ski resort of Gréolières, the stolen vehicle that was used for the breakage, took back theirs which was, possibly in the context of another case, equipped with a police beacon,” the lawyer told AFP. The police were thus able to track the car.
The story was kind of wild. I have never understood art theft as its very hard to move it. Now if they had made really good forgeries, then swapped them in the original museum frames and hid those to be "found", well that then would be a NY Times best seller.
I also think so, but that makes you question the buyer.
Who are these people that want priceless art they can't show anyone?
Remember when Kim Kardashian accidentally took a picture of herself next to some stolen statue? So it was uncovered because of her negligence.
It sort of hints that there's this class of ultra rich people who move in their own stratosphere and look at each other's possibly stolen art without snitching each other out.
I friend suggested that often fine art is "on loan" to museums from some rich person's estate and that having it 'stolen' allows the estate to collect the value of the insurance claim rather than taking the painting back and selling it on the market (which may or may not return the value of the insurance). Also it probably looks bad if "The Frobotz estate has asked for this painting to be returned so they can sell it."
Turns an otherwise illiquid asset into cash that the estate could use.
it seems crazy to me to steal a famous painting from a museum. the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen, and the transaction would be super high risk. so many easier crimes to commit.
The numbers are higher than you'd expect. The trade in illegal (and so high rarity and limited access) goods is ongoing and flourishing via the use of third party intermediaries like free port systems [1] as well as networks of morally grey curatorial and preservation staff. Several notable archaeological "missing links" of the past few years came from said staff mediating access to private collections of undescribed provenance.
[1] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2015/07/01/experts-identify-...
It's weird though.
I don't understand why anyone would want to buy something outside of its legal socio-economic context, when that thing's entire value is derived from that context and is otherwise worth very little intrinsically based purely on aesthetic value.
Any market value it sells for is then based on some shared mental deficiency which prevents people from understanding that.
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> the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen
You only need one.
With something like this I imagine you could hold on to it for years or even a lifetime waiting for the right connection to come along. Maybe some of them are even commissioned or pre-sold.
I can’t say I know anyone with stolen art, but over my lifetime I’ve known people across a range of wealth classes who got a thrill out of acquiring and owning something that was risky contraband.
One would think most jobs are "by order" and thus the customer comes before the risk
I know someone in LA with a piece like this. I was invited with a couple of close friends to their house to view it. This person didn't buy it, though, they took it with their own hands (and explained how simple it was). There were four of these pieces made. I'm pretty certain one is on public display. I don't know about the other two.
I always wondered if these sorts of people actually existed, with a Mona Lisa tucked away in a secret room, or something. And it turns out, yes, they really do.
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> I can’t say I know anyone with stolen art,
You don’t know anyone who downloaded a movie?
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If you can wait out the statute of limitations you can of course sell it. It seems that in France that is not a thing in stolen art from a public collection
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For a while members of the mafia we’re stealing them to trade against their sentence if they got caught for some other crime.
Or, since it’s a Renoir, maybe they were planning to distribute them as punishment.
“Thought you were going up in the world, did you Salvo? Oh no, no Armand Guillaumin for you. The boss ain’t pleased and he wants you to know about it. One more screwup and you’ll end up with a face like that”
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Admit to additional crimes in exchange for a lighter sentence? How does that work?
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A month or two I listened to a podcast about stolen art. To summarize:
1: The stolen art sits around for a LONG TIME.
2: The provenance (papers) is forged
3: The buyer usually doesn't look too closely. They're either willing to fool themselves, gullible, or otherwise should know better.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-case-of-the-4-million-g...
appreciate the link, thanks, ill be giving that a listen for sure
From the documentaries I've watched it's usually the other way around. There's either already a known buyer, or the thief has someone in their circles that already knows how to sell it. So there's a middleman between already trusted entities.
There is specific Italian law about return of art. This would normally apply to people who stole the art but a careful lawyer could use this law to negotiate a reduced punishment for organized crime charges. If the art theft is described as a part of a larger criminal enterprise, then the return of that art could trigger a 2/3 reduction in punishment. See below (translated by google).
https://documenti.camera.it/leg18/dossier/testi/gi0031b.htm
"is committed by the person who has collaborated in identifying the co-conspirators or has ensured evidence of the crime or has effectively worked to prevent the criminal activity from being carried to further consequences or has recovered or had recovered the cultural property subject to the crime (penalty reduced from one third to two thirds)."
Maybe I've seen too many movies—but you can now sell fakes of those paintings to all dozen of your customers (so long as the customers keep their purchase secret from the other purchasers).
> the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen
Right, but what about your local brick dealer who has 10-50K to waste on whatever? Definitely way more common and easier than you think to unload these sort of things, once you go down in price a lot because of the circumstances.
And then if you offer to sell it to someone, they could blackmail you unless you give it to them for free or cheaper.
Unless you’re keeping it for yourself…
The one person I know who did this kept it for themselves.
I would've thought thats what crypto was meant for.
Monero or Cash.
There are some “criminals” and criminal gangs and such, but I think the increase we have seen is due to Russia, Iran, and others who are giving extra resources and intelligence to some of these groups to deprive western institutions of their cultural heritage as part of the “hybrid war”.
Notice how things aren’t being stolen at this magnitude in China? Japan? If we’re Russian or Iranian for example I think this would be a great strategy if you view yourself at a civilizational war. Most of Europe is still asleep or in denial.
> Notice how things aren’t being stolen at this magnitude in China
Stealing from a Chinese museum would be extremely difficult. Cameras and security staff monitor exhibits during the day, and even after hours, extensive surveillance everywhere, makes it hard to get away unnoticed. The risk is simply too high
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I know posting deranged tirades about the supernatural powers of Russia is HN’s favourite pastime but this goes way too far.
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"It was through interrogation work that investigators were able to get the receiver of the stolen goods to admit that he had indeed taken possession of the paintings."
Humans are always the hole in the security you build, no matter how good the wall is.
Interrogation is great, you can even get people to confess to things they didn't even do (from IASIP or something like that)
It was an "organized gang" who already had a police tracking GPS on their vehicle from another criminal investigation
> In addition to DNA, the investigators were also able to benefit from a happy combination of circumstances since “the burglars, after abandoning in the hinterland, near the ski resort of Gréolières, the stolen vehicle that was used for the breakage, took back theirs which was, possibly in the context of another case, equipped with a police beacon,” the lawyer told AFP. The police were thus able to track the car.
https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/le-principal-suspect-...
The story was kind of wild. I have never understood art theft as its very hard to move it. Now if they had made really good forgeries, then swapped them in the original museum frames and hid those to be "found", well that then would be a NY Times best seller.
Stuff like that tends to have a buyer before it is actually stolen.
I also think so, but that makes you question the buyer.
Who are these people that want priceless art they can't show anyone?
Remember when Kim Kardashian accidentally took a picture of herself next to some stolen statue? So it was uncovered because of her negligence.
It sort of hints that there's this class of ultra rich people who move in their own stratosphere and look at each other's possibly stolen art without snitching each other out.
I friend suggested that often fine art is "on loan" to museums from some rich person's estate and that having it 'stolen' allows the estate to collect the value of the insurance claim rather than taking the painting back and selling it on the market (which may or may not return the value of the insurance). Also it probably looks bad if "The Frobotz estate has asked for this painting to be returned so they can sell it."
Turns an otherwise illiquid asset into cash that the estate could use.
I though this was about The Swedish Job, but apparently this is a completely new Renoir theft? Did they not learn anything from the first one?
You mean they didn’t brick it back up when they discovered it was a Renoir?
Missed opportunity IMO. It was where it belongs.
You know how Anthropic has banned being cruel to its models? I wonder if the definition includes asking it to generate images in the style of Renoir…
https://www.instagram.com/renoir_sucks_at_painting/
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-bites-renoir-sucks-mov...
(ETA: Flagged, haha really? Come on. It’s a well-known running joke.)
I had no idea this was a thing, but I made a similar joke about Renoir last month when the paintings were stolen, so I guess I belong in this club.
[flagged]
Random fact: one of the socialist leaders of the Paris Commune saved Renoir's life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Rigault
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> Anyone trying to tell you different is probably a fascist or communist.
are you serious and it is your actual position or is it also a joke?
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Fascists, communists, art critics, and people who can actually paint women’s faces.
(It’s a joke. Like Birds Aren’t Real)
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AI slop non of the links even works
for a split second branch prediction in my head replaced 'cinder block wall' in the title with 'paywall'
As long as you are eventually consistent it is all good.
The thieves probably just wanted to buy a new gaming PC and thus had to resort to stealing 10 million worth of paintings.
I guess they were going to share the one PC.