Art Crime

Tag: completed

  • The Heist of the Finger-Ring: A Hypothetical Art Theft

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    Andrew P.
    in

    By Andrew Peters I am not a thief… But if I was this is how I would start my career. My target is one of the golden rings excavated from Thetford, Norfolk in 1979 that is currently housed at The British Museum, located at Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG. Below is one of those…

  • Roosevelt is Rolling in His Grave

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    Bonnie Abbzug
    in

    Last month, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery received Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential portrait in an inconspicuous brown package placed at the employee entrance. As I had hoped, the package caused quite a stir in the Washington D.C. area. and later, throughout the world as headlines hit the news outlets. Unfortunately for me, this mass media attention…

  • Stitch by Stitch: How to Forge a Medieval Tapestry

    Stitch by Stitch: How to Forge a Medieval Tapestry

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    Circie Franko
    in

    A unicorn rests in a garden, held captive in a ramshackle wooden corral. The magnificent creature wears an intricately decorated collar, a delicate golden chain keeping it tethered to the spindly pomegranate tree in the center of the corral. A kaleidoscope of flowers surrounds the beast, accentuating its ethereal beauty. Strangely, the unicorn seems at…

  • Forging Antiquity

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    Kat
    in

    The Crime  Portrait Head; Unknown Artist, 300-150 BC, Hellenistic Period, said to be from Alexandria (Egypt), marble, British Museum, 1872,0515.1; https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1872-0515-1 In the following document, I detailed how and why I made the choices I did in order to successfully create a Hellenistic sculpture forgery which was then sold to a private buyer.  I drew…

  • Checkmate! Stealing the Lewis Chessmen

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    Wanda Barnes
    in

    Stealing the Chessmen The Lewis Chessmen The Lewis Chessmen in Stornoway, Lewis are six of the original (known) 94 pieces of the Hoard found in Uig, Lewis in 1831. They are small (the tallest being only 10cm) chess pieces carved of walrus ivory and some of whale tooth. Why These Artifacts? While small in stature,…

  • Silent Shelves: A Study of Rare Book Theft

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    Simon Phoenix
    in

    There it sat; red leather shining under the amber glow of the book shop’s lights. Peering through the window from the street it is clear there aren’t any cameras in the room. From behind the dusty glass the books give off a dark red aura. This is a small antiquarian bookshop on the west coast.…

  • The Ghost Collector & The Fighting Temeraire

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    Marissa P.
    in

    I never intended to steal a painting like this one. I have always said it would be too risky, too high-profile, too complicated, too likely to be caught. But when the payout is as extraordinary as this, and the mark is one of the most celebrated cultural icons of British history, how can a thief…

  • A Gesture as Romantic as Eggs

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    Alexi
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    Works Cited

  • The Missing is Forged

    The Missing is Forged

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    Bones
    in

    Forging a painting missing for 35 years Why forge this painting? Combined, the five Edgar Degas sketches stolen, including Leaving the Paddock, were only worth around $100,000. If this worth is split evenly between the five sketches, the Leaving the Paddock would be worth around $20,000. I would argue, though, that because of the infamous…