Crime Four Men in the U.K. Have Been Charged With the Theft of Maurizio Cattelan’s $6 Million Gold Toilet Sculpture The current state of the 18-carat gold sculpture, however, is not known. By Adam Schrader, Nov 7, 2023
Crime Utah Authorities Have Charged Four People for Allegedly Stealing $1 Million Worth of Dinosaur Bones The illegal shipments were bound for China, allegedly marked as “industrial stone” and “landscape rock." By Adam Schrader, Nov 7, 2023
Museums & Institutions Two Climate Activists Shattered the Glass Protecting Diego Velázquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’ at London’s National Gallery The protestors were arrested and the painting has been removed from display. By Adam Schrader, Nov 6, 2023
Law & Politics Once Deemed ‘Worthless,’ a $4.4 Million African Mask Is Now at the Center of a Restitution Claim by Gabon The mask is believed to have been stolen from Gabon around 1917 by René-Victor Fournier, a colonial administrator. By Adam Schrader, Nov 2, 2023
Crime Police in Spain Seized Greco-Scythian Artifacts That Were Allegedly Stolen From Ukraine—But Experts Doubt Their Authenticity The authorities say the total value of the objects exceeds $63 million. By Adam Schrader, Oct 25, 2023
Crime A Painting Stolen From a Museum in Glasgow Has Been Returned After More Than 30 Years The work by Robert Gemmell Hutchison was reportedly worth about $9,721 when it was taken, in 1989. By Adam Schrader, Oct 20, 2023
Law & Politics The Cleveland Museum of Art Is Suing the Manhattan D.A. Over the Seizure of a $20 Million Statue Allegedly Looted From Turkey The museum is asserting it is the rightful owner of the sculpture. By Adam Schrader, Oct 20, 2023
Crime After 80 Years, a Long-Lost Painting Looted by U.S. Soldiers During World War II Has Been Returned to Germany An anonymous tipster called Art Recovery International to admit their uncle had stolen the painting from a German museum. By Sarah Cascone, Oct 20, 2023
Museums & Institutions In the Wake of a Major Theft Scandal, the British Museum Plans to Spend $12 Million to Fully Digitize Its Collection The museum expects the digitization project will take five years to complete. By Adam Schrader, Oct 19, 2023
Museums & Institutions U.K. Museums Maintain That Art Theft Is ‘Rare’ Following Reports Exaggerating the Scale of the Problem Reports of thousands of missing items have come following the British Museum scandal this summer. By Adam Schrader, Oct 12, 2023
Crime The Great Wall of China Has Suffered ‘Irreversible’ Damage After Two Workers Excavated a Shortcut Through the Cultural Relic The pair have been detained and charged with destroying a cultural relic. By Adam Schrader, Sep 28, 2023
Crime Disgraced Dealer Inigo Philbrick’s Co-Conspirator, Robert Newland, Sentenced to 20 Months in Prison Newland, who helped Philbrick execute and perpetuate the massive fraud, will serve just over one and a half years in jail. By Eileen Kinsella, Sep 20, 2023
Law & Politics Prosecutors Seek Prison Time for Ex-Dealer Robert Newland for Orchestrating an $86 Million ‘Ponzi-Like Scheme’ With Inigo Philbrick The government says Newland must serve a "meaningful" sentence to send a message to the "unregulated art market" By Eileen Kinsella, Sep 14, 2023
Crime Fake Celebrities, Code Names, and ‘Stuffing’: Inigo Philbrick’s Collaborator Reveals the Elaborate Plots They Used to Con Collectors Out of Millions 'I’d quickly come to learn that a fair amount of deception was accepted practice in the art world,' disgraced dealer Robert Newland said. By Eileen Kinsella, Sep 12, 2023
Crime The Manhattan D.A. Seized a $20 Million Statue of Marcus Aurelius From the Cleveland Museum of Art, Continuing a Spree of Raids Seeking Looted Turkish Art The D.A. is looking to return Turkey's stolen Bubon bronzes, and has also seized a sculpture from Fordham University's antiquities museum. By Sarah Cascone, Sep 1, 2023
