THE LOST MUSEUM OF STOLEN ART

When I was in Athens, a tour guide asked a powerful question: What is the largest illegal business in the world?  Of course, no one knew and the obvious went by the way side.  Art & Antiquities take first place.

There is a museum that art insurance agents, thieves, mobsters, detectives, etc, talk about all the time.  They say that it contains more paintings than the Louvre and is 10 times larger.  They say that the Louvre is a drop in the bucket compared to this place.

Well, the Lost Museum of Stolen Art or The Museum of the Missing just does not exist even though it is referred to frequently by experts. It is the Museum that never was and has better holdings than any art institution.  

The recovery rate of nabbed art is about 15% which, in the art world, is quite high.  It takes diligent detectives and insurance agents to recover any of the pieces. It takes ingenious people to make their way in the underworld of serious criminals who don't think twice about committing murder.

The Art Loss Register based in London has registered over 20,000 pieces in the late 1990's including Van Gogh's, Chinese Ming vases, antiquities, antiques and more.  Today it says that the stolen works are in the two digit billions.  The goal of the Register is to raise awareness of stolen art. 

No one is immune from stealing.  When druggies steal, they fence a piece for whatever they can get like $100, when a priceless piece is worth millions.

An attorney stole a major work and threatened the burglars when he couldn't sell it because it was such a high profile masterpiece. Then there are the inside jobs at museums, students,drunk kids, art dealers, elderly and the list goes on with no boundaries for age, race, creed or gender. People all over the world steal and English is not the common language. Nor is art theft the realm of the Mafia.  It is not an industry for the faint of heart. There is no mercy for those making transactions if they screw up.

We need the art to know who we are, about our civilization, ourselves. A theft affects all of us.  Not all thefts make headlines. I think they should. Looted items that are "lifted" from the public never to be seen again.

What would happen if the Statue of Liberty were suddenly gone? Think about it.