Address: Stenton, Dunbar, Lothian, Scotland, EH42 1SY

Attraction Type: Historic House 

Location: 4 miles west of Dunbar, off the B6370 

Police in East Lothian are appealing for information after items from a rare collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts, historical swords, daggers, spears and arrows were stolen from Biel House, a mansion in East Lothian at some point between 4 pm on Tuesday, October 4th and 9 am on Wednesday, October 5th, 2016. Biel House, is a privately-owned - castellated three-storey residence which dates originally from the 16th century.  It is a member of the Historic Houses Association, but only open by appointment to visitors.

The residence is reported to be the birthplace of William Dunbar, the great Scottish poet. Owned by the Earls of Dunbar until 1489, when the King transferred it from Hugo Dunbar of Biel to Robert Lauder of Edrington, the original house was a 12th century tower house. The present house was built in the 16th century. 

Officers are asking anyone in the area at the time or who may have been offered any objects matching the above description to please contact officers on 101 or alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

On October 10, 2016 ARCA was informed by Christos Tsirogiannis that he had identified a new potentially tainted antiquity scheduled to be auctioned by Christie's auction house in New York on October 25, 2016 traceable to the confiscated Robin Symes archive.

That item is Lot 92, A Roman Marble Draped Goddess

A screenshot of the provenance/collection history details are added here:

Since 2007 Tsirogiannis, a UK-based Greek forensic archaeologist and summer lecturer with ARCA's Postgraduate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, has sought to identify antiquities of illicit origin in museums, collections, galleries and auction houses that can be traced to the confiscated Robin Symes-Christos Michaelides archives and the related Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina archives.

Each of these dealer's archives provide insight inside the illicit trade in antiquities and, when combined, include thousands of ancient objects from all over the world which have passed through the hands of smugglers, middlemen, and antiquities dealers who "laundered” illicit objects through the licit market.

Christies Auction Object alongside image from the confiscated Symes archive.

Many have argued that Dr. Tsirogiannis tactics of naming potentially looted objects from the archives via ARCA's blog, David Gill's Looting Matters and on occasion Neil Brodie's Market of Mass Destruction, places auction houses at a disadvantage and should be construed as unfair given the market does not have direct access to the archives.  A valid point, but this is not the first time that an item up for auction at Christie's has been listed for auction exhibiting only a limited version of the objects actual collection history.

How Many? 

This is the third time ARCA has helped to publicise tainted antiquities that Tsirogiannis has identified on auction with the firm Christie's in 2016.  In 2015, objects were identified at the auction house in April, in September, in October and in December.  In 2014 Tsirogiannis identified objects in March, November and in December.  In 2013, ARCA published only one. Each of these auctions excluded key passages through the hands of disgraced antiquities dealers well-known for having dealt in tainted antiquities.

But is the fact that trafficked antiquities continue to make it to licit market the fault solely of the auction house in failing to do sufficient due diligence or are their "distinguished" private consignors, like the one in this month's auction, just as culpable?

It would be interesting to know from the auction house's perspective how many times they are approached by collectors who have purchased illicit objects in the past, but who fail to disclose an object's full collection history, knowing that should they reveal a less than pristine pedigree, the pieces would then become worthless on the licit art market and also potentially be subject to seizure.

Do the big-three auction houses keep records of consignors who falsify or omit collection histories?  Do they in turn share these lists with researchers? And if not, do they share them voluntarily with authorities?

Given the frequency illicit antiquities continue to penetrate the legitimate art market, embroiling firms like Christie's in the repetitive drama of appearing complacent when handling stolen and illegally-exported (illicit) antiquities shouldn't auction houses consider more stringent reporting requirements of their consignors to insure that they do not support the illicit antiquities trade. 

In closing,  given the proven lucrative nature of unprovenanced antiquities on the open market, Tsirogiannis has notified Interpol and the American authorities of his new identifications. Here's hoping that his continued spotlight, however awkward it is for everyone, will serve as a stark reminder that we still have a long way to go before the licit art market is cleaned up.

By: Lynda Albertson

In a ceremony to be held October 11, 2016 at 13:00 at the Mexican Embassy in Rome, Brigadier General Fabrizio Parrulli, Italy's new Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, in a ceremony to repatriate illicitly trafficked heritage will return twelve archaeological objects to the Mexican authorities via a handover to the country's ambassador to Italy, Signore Juan Jose Guerra Abud, KBE. 

Having succeeding General Mariano Mossa as the head of Italy's specialised Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale this year, Brigadier General Fabrizio Parrulli is not stranger to the nuance of international policing.  With degrees European Studies as well as International Law and Diplomacy the new general has commanded a team of Iraqi police as part of the NATO mission in Iraq and served as the commander of a training department for police in Baghdad.  Closer to home,he has served within the Carabinieri TPC overseeing the its NCO School in Florence.

The twelve pre-Columbian Mesoamerican pieces to be repatriated are from the Mesoamerican Preclassical period (2500 BCC - 200 CE) and the Classical Period (200-1000 CE).  The objects seized included a clay head of votive use portraying a character of high rank, another votive bust with disk-shaped earrings and another sculpture with nose ornamentation.

The antiquities were seized by law enforcement between 2013 and 2016 as the result of three separate investigations coordinated by the prosecutor of the Republic of Palmi (RC), Pesaro and Ascoli Piceno.  Several of the objects were seized during a customs cross-check of two travellers arriving from Mexico via the Reggio di Calabria "Tito Minniti" Airport, also known as the Aeroporto dello Stretto, in southern Calabria.  In a second instance an object had been marketed via "a popular online sales site" where the seller listed the city where the object was currently located and a cellular where he could be reached for further questions.  To verify the authenticity of the objects being sold the Carabinieri TPC worked with experts from the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini in Rome as objects of this type are often reproductions.

Mexico is a quintessential example of an antiquities-rich “source nation”.  It's a country with an abundance of unprotected archaeological sites that all too often yields artifacts with a commercial value on the art market.  It is also a nation, that despite making great strides, still lacks the economic resources necessary to adequately protect much of the remote cultural patrimony found within its borders. 

In 2013, art market trend watcher Emma Crichton-Miller noted that Paris had superseded New York as "the most dynamic centre for pre-Columbian art globally, attracting collectors mainly from Europe and America, but also Latin America, the Middle East and Asia." This might explain why traffickers importing illicit goods, appreciate Italy's strategic placement on the European mainland. 

The theft and illegal trade of Mexican pre-Columbian antiquities is fed by high demand within the art market, which in turn creates strong incentives for poverty-driven digging.   Individuals and teams of looters dig indiscriminately where opportunity avails, without concern for the objects lost archaeological context.  They then collect and smuggle valuable finds to market countries by whatever channels are available to them.  

What legal instruments are there in Mexico to protect cultural heritage? 

Mexico's heritage law, written January 19, 1934 (Art. 27, Political Constitution of the Republic of Mexico; Law on the Protection and Conservation of Monuments. Typical Towns and Places of National Beauty), established national ownership of all immovable archaeological material in the public domain, and precluded the export of all works of art or antiquities without an export license.  

This law was further refined in 1972 creating new archaeological zones and extending national ownership of the cultural patrimony to private collections and absolutely forbidding the export of pre-Columbian antiquities. The only exception to this strict mandate is in the case of presidentially-approved gifts and exchanges to foreign scientific institutions and foreign governments for diplomacy purposes. 

It is also illegal in Mexico to excavate archaeological sites, even on private land, without the permission of the Mexican government's National Institute of Anthropology and History. 

In February 2014 ARCA wrote about a sandstone bas-relief panel then-titled, "Head of a Guard" stolen in September 2011 from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and found 2000 miles away in Edmonton in February 2014. The relief was recovered thanks to a collaborative criminal investigation by the Sûreté du Québec and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in collaboration with a Loss Adjuster from AXA Art.

"As the curator who was responsible for organizing the exhibition hall from which the object was stolen over two years ago, I am obviously very happy to see this beautiful work of ancient sculpture return to the museum. It was one of our only pieces representative of Persian art of the Achaemenid period (2nd half 6th century BCE to 330 BCE). 

It represents in low relief the head and shoulder of an armed Persian guard and probably decorated the walls of one of the several Achaemenid palaces spread across the Persian empire. Similar pieces are found in various museums and most were looted from palace sites in the first part of the 19th century. This particular piece is very well preserved and had suffered no damage during its recent adventure. 

The work of the RCMP and the Sureté du Québec in recovering this artefact was remarkable and the officers in question are to be complimented for the quality of their work and its successful end. We all hope that this success will deter would-be thieves from attempting other such thefts. The investigation continues to try and recover the second object stolen from the museum also in the autumn of 2011." 

The Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP) promotes practical tools and communication to raise public awareness about trafficking in and return of stolen objects.

With its work closely tied to the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the Committee met at UNESCO's Headquarters in Paris, on September 29-30, 2016 to discus the need for better prevention, increased cooperation and awareness raising of illicit trafficking in cultural property.

As an outcome of that meeting, UNESCO issued a document which highlights the phenomenon of free ports and their implications on the illicit art market. A copy of their report, it its entirety, can be referenced directly on the UNESCO website here:

Freeport concerns are a subject that ARCA has blogged about with regularity as has Professor David Gill on the blog Looting Matters as they have long been havens for high value artwork in general and illicit art work in particular.  More recently Free ports have been springing up around the world with increasing regularity as more investors begin to store and trade physical assets at locations which provide taxation incentives.

With their state of the art security, enormous potential for tax savings and less than transparent ownership record keeping which varies from country to country and freeport to freeport, these massive storage facilities may well continue to be a convenient and secure weigh station for traffickers to park hot goods until the world gets distracted elsewhere.  

From the Ground, Up: The Looting of Vưườn Chuối within the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Antiquities Trade

The exact nature of the illicit antiquities trade from ground to market in Southeast Asia remains poorly known outside of Thailand and Cambodia, where most research has been focused. This paper helps to address this imbalance by documenting and contextualizing looting activities at the Bronze and Iron Age site of Vưườn Chuối, located within urban Hanoi. A brief excavation history is provided so as to place recent looting into archaeological context. The methods used to document the recent and on-going looting observed are then discussed, followed by the nature of the current threat to Vưườn Chuối and a summation of what little is known about the Vietnamese antiquities trade in general and its relationship to regional antiquities trafficking. Finally, we discuss the current regulatory landscape in terms of constitutional, ownership, penal and international law, difficulties with enforcement and prosecution, and what course of action is needed not only to protect Vưườn Chuối and similar sites in and around Hanoi, but also to continue to raise public awareness of the archaeological repercussions of the trade itself.

Tracking conflict antiquities and illicit antiquities sold via the internet is challenging, even for people who regularly try to monitor sites in their daily life or as part of ongoing research. Manual checks and automated link and keyword extraction crawlers can be useful for scraping data, but all too often it feels a bit like the arcade game whack-a-mole.  

Just when you think you might be on to a terrorist selling antiquities on eBay, surprise! You really have only found the non-terrorist-leaning dishonest individual with the same modus aperandi that you have already recorded ten times before, but now with a different user name.  

Take for example, this eBay auction which purports to be a Genuine Ancient Roman Iridescent Blown Glass Vial, what archaeologists call a piriform unguentaria. Ancient everyday vessels like these weren't intentionally iridescent.  They gained their rainbow'd look when the vessel became buried in soil.  Soil then leaches the alkali from the glass which, when corroded, can alter the glass object's surfaces to reflect light in such a way as to cause iridescence.

The eBay seller ancientgifts gives the following description for their item:

CONDITION: Very good, complete but likely repaired (professionally, probably by a conservator). Fairly uncommon style. Minor scratches and scuffs consistent with use and then burial in soil. Heavy layer of iridescence and soil deposits caused by prolonged burial in soil).

Surprisingly, this suggested "conservator-treated" piece still has soil clinging to it? Ancient objects that have surface deposits can contain important information on its use or provenance so IF the object actually passed through a conservator's hands, like the seller's object description implies, the potential significance of the soil deposits should have been evaluated and recorded, not merely left in place. Perhaps this teaser has been added to give the object the appearance of authenticity?

Not so surprisingly this genuine possibly-fake object comes without any provenance/collecting history.  This in spite of the fact that the object has one of this seller's typical 3 kilometer long descriptions which outlines the likely history of the object ad nauseam.  

But as eBay shoppers should know, provenance is difficult to produce when an object has recently been looted and equally hard to come by when a seemingly-authentic antiquity has no history at all because it isn't what it claims to be, or hasn't come from anywhere near where it has been suggested.

But who is the seller ancientgifts?

Looking through ancientgifts "ADDITIONAL TERMS OF SALE" takes you on a not so foxy fox hunt that I doubt any, but the most well-informed savvy collectors, who actually bother with conducting due diligence would ever bother with.  The first click links you to his Ancient Gifts website at http://www.ancientgifts.biz. This link in turn leads you to a twitter profile: @ancientgifts which then lists another URL for a website claiming to be the SUSU - Student Association for Archaeology and Anthropology on which is posted the following claim.

When searching with Google "Southern Urals State University Students Association for the Advancement of Archaeological and Anthropological Studies" doesn't return any URLs pointing to a legitimate organisation affiliated with the Chelyabinsk, Russia university.

The WHO IS registry however does give us some leads as the Registrant Contact Information for both of the seller's URLs is:

Name: Chuck Ordego

Organization: Timeless Treasure

Address: 3051 Hales Passage

City: Lummi Island

State / Province: WA

Postal Code: 98262

Country: US

Phone: +1.3607589932

Note the "d" in the last name "Ordego".

A check of directory assistance shows that the telephone number and residential address affiliated with each site are registered to Charles Edward Ortego (notice the "t" and not the "d"), his wife Anna (sometimes written as Anya) Ponomareva  who also goes by the name Anna Ortego and possibly a third individual, his elderly or deceased grandfather Carl Stube. 

"Ortego" is the last name "Chuck" or "Charlie" or "Charles" uses, according to his mother's blog and various legal records related to a lawsuit he filed on behalf of a Lummi Island homeowners association he is registered with.    His wife, according to one of her two Facebook pages, is from Chelyabinsk, Russia which might explain the Russian University nonsense or the certificates of authenticity they are willing to provide from the likely-fictitious university student group. 

Mr. Stube appears to be Chuck's mother's father, and as she is in her late seventies, and the only evidence of his existence I could find was a fifty year old photo that would make him at least ninety. I personally doubt if he is still living.

In any case, I think we can say for certain that Charles E. Ortego, who lives at a residence located at 3051 Hales Passage, Lummi Island, Washington along with his Russian-born wife are the most likely humans behind the username ancientgifts and I don't want to make this post more tedious than it already is by listing all the sites where you can find a correlation. 

The auction duo seem to "seed" their online sales with low value often-overpriced authentic objects alongside fakes and a mixed bag of inexpensive gemstones that Ms. Ponomareva Ortega advertises on two Facebook profiles and her Instagram profile.  

The couple claim that much of the proceeds they make will go to "The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as some other worthy institutions in Europe connected with Anthropology and Archaeology."

Not surprisingly we weren't able to verify any donations to that esteemed institution.

Looking over past reports from suspicious archaeologists Doug Rocks-Macqueen and Paul Barford it appears that Ortego and/or his wife have been selling tourist-grade trinkets of sketchy origin under a variety of usernames for more than a decade.

Sometimes irreputable sellers on eBay create shill accounts to bid on their own auctions to drive up the prices and sometimes they change user names when they have been outed publicly for fraud, hoping that angry buyers or hostile competitors won't notice or won't pursue them. 

Past online auction names that have been attributed to the individual(s) selling under the current username ancientgifts include:

southern_urals_state_saaa

southern_urals_saaa, and

s_urals_state_university

timelesstreasure4u

thegiftoftime

But regardless of how many names the seller has used now or in the past, he has been successfully working the system for more than a decade.

This doesn't say much for eBay's investment in policing their own auction site, where profit opportunity is high and old rules for committing fraud no longer seem to be applied.  Or if they are, they are applied selectively and very rarely when it comes to chasing dealers flogging low value ancient art.

But if you have any information on other user names used by this particular ancient art dealer, please send them our way and we can update his list.

If you have found your way to the ARCA blog doing your own due diligence as a potential eBay buyer/collector, consider yourself duly warned.  Any successful con game depends on the greed and deception (especially self-deception) of BOTH the conner and the connee.

Purchasing ancient art via the murky waters of an online trading community the size of eBay, is the perfect toxic cocktail for the uninformed novice collector. The site has all the trappings of honest tradesmen plying their goods in the 21st century but still very little in the way of deterring or prosecuting criminals and conmen.

Welcome to the Wild Wild Web. 

The International Arts & Antiquities Security Forum (IAASF) will be hosted at the NewcastleGateshead Quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne, Friday, November 11, 2016 and will focus on various topics related to texisting or emerging threats and risks for those in the field interested in the protection of arts and antiquities.

Of benefit to security professionals and the wider heritage protection sector including, gallery owners, shippers, insurance companies and curators the event will include presentations on the importance of security in protecting culture and art, the scale of threat to UK arts and antiquities, the threat of terrorism as it relates to art and antiquities, operational best practices in crime prevention for museums and houses of worship, (both physical & technical) as well as how to protect art and antiquities during transit and the ever increasing roll of conservators in the field of heritage protection.

The content of the presentations has been specifically designed to enable everybody to take away a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the issues that exist, experiencing best practises and being exposed to great innovations; both technical and operational that will help reduce and manage risk.

The IAASF event will bring together an international range of presenters including

Dennis Ahearn

Director of Security, UK Christie’s London

William Brown

National Security Adviser, Arts Council England

Andy Davis

Owner and Managing Director of Trident Manor and Chair and IAASF Chair, IAASF

Dr Nicholas Eastaugh

Founder and Director of AA&R -Art Analysis & Research Ltd.

Annabel Fell-Clark

Sr. Insurance Consultant, Former CEO, AXA Art

Declan Garrett

Security & Safety Manager, National Gallery of Ireland

Adrian Green

Detective Superintendent - Major Crime, Organised Crime and Special Branch, Durham Constabulary

Dr Sam Hardy

Archaeologist, Specialist in Conflict Antiquities

Michael Huijser

Executive Director, National Maritime Museum - Amsterdam and Advisor to the Dutch Government on Cultural Operations

Jim McGuffey

Committee Chair, Cultural Properties – Houses of Worship, ASIS

Ricardo Sanz Marcos

Member of the Cultural Heritage Council, ASIS International

Paid registration to the International Arts & Antiquities Security Forum includes: 

• Full day of presentations
• Tea, coffee, snacks and lunch
• Drinks reception served in the Riverside Terrace

For more information please see the Forum's website here. 

The FBI's "Top Ten" unresolved Art Crimes has now been reduced to nine thanks to the dedication and hard work of a division of Italy's Corpo della Guardia di Finanza, which probes financial crimes related to organised crime. Together with the Italian Public Prosecutions office, the Naples Direzione distrettuale antimafia and dedicated Dutch investigators, two of Vincent Van Gogh's historic paintings have finally been recovered during a labor intensive investigation into Italy's organized crime syndicate that is an offshoot of the Camorra.

Fourteen years after their theft from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam on December 7, 2002, the Italian authorities announce that two paintings have been recovered during search and seizure operations connected to an ongoing international cocaine trafficking and mafia racketeering investigation.  The artworks were recovered 15 September 2016 in the Castellammare di Stabia area in the Bay of Naples but were kept under wraps as the investigation finalised certain details.

In January 2016 Italian authorities arrested several individuals long suspected of overseas money laundering and international drug trafficking.  Two of those were affiliated with the Scampia splinter group of the Naples clan.  Raffaele Imperiale was the suspected head of the clan, also had ties to Amsterdam, where he reportedly owns or owned an Amsterdam coffeshop.

Until a few months before his arrest Imperiale had been living with his family in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, where a room costs upwards of €1500 per night.  Mario Cerrone, a clan affiliate turned state witness, is reported to have been the one who led the police to the paintings location -- Raffaele Imperiale's house at Castellammare di Stabia.

The art works recovered are:

View of the Sea at Scheveningen, 1882

by Vincent van Gogh

oil on canvas, 13 inches x 20 inches

Completed in Scheveningen

This small picture is considered to be one of Van Gogh's finest masterworks. Painted directly on the beach in Scheveningen where the famous Post-Impressionist artist set up his easel and painted “plein-air” (in the open air), Van Gogh's signature style of thickly applied paint still contained grains of sand which had blow onto the canvas and stuck to the paint as the artist worked. 

When ARCA asked investigators who had facilitated the identifications after the recovery of the painting if they had physical access to the paintings and if they could see these fine grains of sand, the investigator responded happily “I have seen them today. And I have smelt the sea.”

In terms of its condition upon recovery Managing Director Adriaan Doenszelmann of the Van Gogh Museum stated that the painting appears to have sustained some damage to the paint in its lower left corner causing the paint to break away in an area of approximately 5 x 2 cm.  The painting will undergo full examination by conservators once the Italian authorities release the painting back to the museum.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen 1884 - 1885

by Vincent Van Gogh

oil on canvas 41.3 x 32.1 cm

Completed in Nuenen

This painting has been stolen on two occasions.  The first time was on April 14, 1991 when a total of twenty Van Gogh artworks were snatched from the Vincent Van Gogh Museum.  All twenty artworks were recovered in Amsterdam within 24 hours and the four perpetrators involved in that museum heist, including one museum guard and a former employee of the museum's security firm, were arrested and ultimately prosecuted.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen appears to have been recovered in fairly good condition.

Outline of the 2002 Van Gogh Museum Theft

Theft Venue: The Van Gogh Museum. The Van Gogh Museum houses the largest collection of the Post Impressionist Dutch masters artworks. In total more than 200 paintings and almost 500 drawings by Vincent van Gogh.

Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Location in Venue: Rietveld Building

Victim (Owner): Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen is owned by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. View of the Sea at Scheveningen is the property of the Van Gogh Museum 

Time of Theft:  Between 7:00 and 8:00 am on December 7, 2002

Open/Closed: Closed. The robbery occurred shortly before opening time.

Duration of Crime: Estimated at less than thirty minutes.

When Discovered: Immediately. When thieves smashed a window and entered the museum it triggered the museum security systems. 

Primary Object(s) Taken: Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, 1884 and View of the Sea at Scheveningen, 1882 both by artist Vincent Van Gogh

Category of Art Object(s): Both artworks are small oil on canvas paintings

Ancillary Object(s) Touched: None

Ancillary Object(s) Taken: None

Clues Left at Crime Scene: At the entry point thieves left behind a cloth, likely used to reduce the sound of breaking glass,  one ladder, and a rope. They also left objects used to hide their identities, these last two items were found on the steps of the museum.

Suspected Related Crimes: Suspect Octave Durham’s reputation as a thief had already earned him the moniker “the Monkey” for his artful dodger activities.

Entry Method: Thieves used a 15-foot ladder propped up against a first-story window at the rear of the building. The glass window was then smashed with cloth-covered hands or alternative instruments in order for the men to gain entry. 

Exit Method: Same method as entry.

Operational Method: The thieves went straight to the two stolen paintings, removed only these two objects and then exited.

Other Methods of Note: Only method of concealment: head gear to discourage CCTV footage. 

Probable Motive: possibly financial, possibly organised crime related

Follow-up after Post-theft: After the suspects were preliminarily identified police tracked the men for over a year in locations in the Netherlands and in Spain.  Law enforcement authorities then wire-tapped the suspects’ phonesand eleven suspicious phone conversations were documented between February 17, 2003 and May 7, 2004.  

Revised Motive Theory: Financial gain. Likely organised crime related.  Based on the phone conversations and the suspiciously extravagant spending of the suspects after the theft, we can assume the paintings passed from the initial thieves to a secondary party, likely for a significant sum of money. 

Identified People Involved in the Crime

Handler(s): None publically announced.

Accomplice(s): Dutch-born Octave Durham, A.K.A. "The Monkey" and Henk Bieslijn

Organization(s) Involved: Investigators suspect possible Italian Mafia /Syndicate (Camorra) involvement.

Ultimate Possessor: Unknown.

Arrests: In 2004, police arrested Octave Durham in Spain and Henk Bieslijn in Amsterdam.

Total Length of Investigation: Ongoing

In March 2010 Giovanni Nistri, of the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale stated that he believed that the pair stole the paintings on behalf of the Neapolitan Camorra. According to him at the time, there were "important clues to allow the presumption that members of the Neapolitan Camorra were somehow involved in the theft and the consequent possession of the two paintings. 

Evidence Used In Prosecution: Witness Testimony, CCTV Footage, 11 wire-tapped phone conversations, DNA evidence collected at the scene from discarded headgear found on the scene.  Financial records of the suspects directly after the theft which included suspicious purchases of high value including: watches, new furniture, home renovations, and foreign travel to Thailand, Euro Disney, Ibiza, and the Dominican Republic.

Criminal Sentencing: Octave Durham received a prison sentence of 4.5 years. Henk Bieslijn received a prison sentence of 4 years. In addition, each individual was ordered to pay the Van Gogh Museum €350,000 in damages. Despite their convictions, both continued to deny responsibility.

Artwork Recovered: Yes, in moderately good shape, the week of September 25, 2016

Why Steal Van Gogh?

Van Gogh, who in his lifetime only sold one painting, commands big figures in the contemporary art world. Eight masterpieces by Van Gogh paintings are ranked among the world's 50 most expensive artworks ever sold.    Echoing that, the wave pattern of art theft often mirrors the whimsy of the art market. Then thieves follow the path of least protection or resistance striking at objects known to be of value in places that allow for the opportunity.

How many Vincent Van Gogh artworks have been stolen? 

When opportunity has knocked, art thieves have often had a preference for works of art attributed to Vincent Van Gogh.   But just how many artworks by Vincent van Gogh have been stolen? 

Van Gogh, who in his lifetime only sold one painting, has long commanded substantial figures in the contemporary art world. Eight of his masterpieces are ranked among the world's 50 most expensive works of art ever sold.    

Echoing that, the wave pattern of art theft often mirrors the whimsy of the art market. Then thieves follow the path of least protection or resistance and strike at objects known to be of value in places that allow for the opportunity.

Taking a look inside ARCA's database of art crimes involving the artist Vincent Van Gogh by our count, 36 Van Gogh works of art have been stolen, 3 of them two times each, over the course of 14 separate art thefts.

Stolen in 1937 - The Lovers: The Poet's Garden IV, 1888 1888 is only known to the art world through an 1888 letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother, Theo and a single black and white photograph.

This painting was seized by Reichsfeldmarschall Hermann Göring along with three other Van Gogh paintings from Berlin and Frankfurt between 1937 and 1938 from the National Galerie in Berlin - most probably because he wanted to monetize it, along with others.
This artwork, likely an oil on canvas was completed the same year the letter to Theo was sent and is all the more touching for the small sketch the artist sent to his brother along with his letter.  This work has been been missing since 1937/38 and has never been recovered. 

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June 4, 1977 - Poppy Flowers (also known as Vase And Flowers and Vase with Viscaria) 1887 was stolen from Cairo's Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum and later recovered only to then be stolen again in 2010. 

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February 17, 1975 – Van Gogh watercolour Breton Women (after Emile Bernard) also known as Les bretonnes et le pardon de pont Aven was one of 28 works of art stolen from the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan, Italy. The painting was recovered in an apartment registered to an alias in Milan on April 6, 1975.  It too was stolen a second time, just one month later. See the individual theft post here.

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May 15, 1975 - Van Gogh watercolour Breton Women (after Emile Bernard) also known as Les bretonnes et le pardon de pont Aven was stolen for a second time along with 37 other Impressionist and Post Impressionist works of art from the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan, Italy. This follow-up theft included many of same artworks previously taken during the February 17, 1975 theft. The Van Gogh was recovered on November 2, 1975 in what was then West Germany along with ten other stolen artworks taken during the second the Galleria d'Arte Moderna theft. See the individual theft post here.

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May 20, 1988 - Three paintings Vase with Carnations (1886) by Vincent Van Gogh, La maison du maître Adam Billaud à Nevers (The House of Master Adam Billaud at Nevers) painted in 1874 by Johan Barthold Jongkind and Bouteilles et pêches (Bottles and peaches) painted in 1890 by Paul Cézanne were stolen from the Stedelijk Museum, next door to the Van Gogh Museum on the Museumplein in Amsterdam.  All three works of art were recovered undamaged.  See the individual theft post here.

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December 12, 1988 -  Three Van Goghs worth an estimated €113 million euros were stolen from the The Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo about 60 miles east of Amsterdam. The stolen works of art included the second of three painted sketches titled De aardappeleters, (the potato eaters) completed in 1885, as well as two other works Four Cut Sunflowers, (also known as Overblown Sunflowers from August-September), 1887 and Loom with Weaver,1884.  All three paintings were recovered but had sustained damages.  See the individual theft post here.

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June 28, 1990 - Three early Van Gogh paintings, Digging farmer, 1885-87, Brabant Peasant, seated, 1884-1885, and Wheels of the Water Mill in Gennep were stolen from the Het Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch, Netherlands. The Digging Farmer was found in 1991 in a bank safe in Belgium. The other two paintings were returned in 1994 via negotiations with a tertiary party.  See the individual theft post here.

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April 14, 1991 - 20 paintings by Vincent van Gogh were stolen from the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. All 20 paintings were recovered within 24 hours. Three of the 20 paintings were severely damaged. Four perpetrators, including one museum guard and a former employee of the museum's security firm were arrested in July 1991.  See the entire list of artworks and the individual theft post here.

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May 19, 1998  -  The prestigious Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome was robbed by three armed with guns shortly before closing time. The criminals stole two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh's L'Arlésienne, 1889 and Le Jardinier, October 1889 and Paul Cézanne's Cabanon de Jourdan, 1906.  On July 5, 1998 eight suspects were arrested and all three paintings were recovered.   See the individual theft post here.

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May 13-15, 1999 - the Vincent van Gogh painting, The Willow, was stolen from the headquarters of F. van Lanschot Bankiers NV in Den Bosch. The painting was recovered in 2006 following an undercover sting operation where two suspects were arrested. See the individual theft post here.

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December 7, 2002 - Two thieves using a ladder break in to the Van Gogh Museum making off with two paintings, View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884). Following an intensive international investigation, two Dutchmen, Octave Durham, A.K.A. "The Monkey" and Henk Bieslijn were arrested in 2004 for their respective roles in the burglary. Durham received a prison sentence of 4.5 years. Henk Bieslijn was sentenced to 4 years incarceration. Each of the culprits were ordered to pay the Van Gogh Museum €350,000 in damages and both denied responsibility.  The paintings remianed lost for 14 years only to resurface in late September 2016 in the Castellammare di Stabia area in the Bay of Naples. During a blitz by Italian law enforcement on members of an illicit cocaine trafficking ring operated by  a splinter group of the Naples Camorra, the paintings were recovered.  See individual theft post here. 

April 26, 2003 - Three paintings including Van Gogh's The Fortification of Paris with Houses, Picasso's Poverty and Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape were taken from The Whitworth Art Gallery at The University of Manchester. The works of art were found the next day crammed into a tube behind a public toilet in Manchester's Whitworth Park. See the individual theft post here.

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February 10, 2008 - Four paintings were stolen at gunpoint from a private Zürich gallery run by the Foundation E.G. Bührle in Switzerland. The paintings were Blossoming Chestnut Branches by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne's Boy in the Red Waistcoat, Claude Monet's Poppies near Vétheuil and Edgar Degas' Count Lepic and His Daughters.  The Van Gogh and Monet were recovered on February 18, 2008.  The Degas was recovered in April 2012 and Cezanne's Boy in the Red Waistcoat was recovered April 12, 2012.  See the individual theft post here.

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August 21, 2010 - Poppy Flowers (also known as Vase And Flowers and Vase with Viscaria) 1887 was stolen for the second time from the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo.  Its current whereabouts are still unknown. 

By Lynda Albertson