Monday, March 29, 2010

6 Billion Dollars a Year – wow.

ART-THEFT

I knew that art theft was a big business, but I didn’t know that it was that big. According to Christopher A. Marinello, the general counsel and worldwide recoveries manager of the Art Loss Register, art theft is a six-billion dollar a year industry.

You can read about some famous cases of art theft here - “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_theft#Famous_cases_of_art_theft”.

Fortunately, at least in this story, two New York art dealers where lucky. . .

http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/03/art-theft-recoveries.html

What I find amazing is that the majority of this stolen art, must be, just by the nature of art itself, in private collections somewhere around the world (more likely than not in the collections of some rather nefarious and very wealthy people) or stashed away in some  clandestine wear house or hiding place. It’s a sad thought tightly wrapped in a package of greed and arrogance. . .

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