Everyone I know keeps expressing the judgment that the theft of Munch's Scream is totally insensible because you can't very well sell such a famous painting. Intuitively sound, but not exactly accurate, I think. Stolen art and antiquities, it turns out, are the third most-trafficked commodity in the United States, falling just behind the less culturally esteemed drug and gun markets.
The NYT cites unspecified art experts as saying that it would be nearly impossible to sell either The Scream or The Madonna to a collector due to the paintings' fame. True, perhaps, but not for lack of interest. There's a market principle informing the bet that these paintings will be ransomed. The work is certain to find an interested collector, just as Nazi loot, illegal excavation sales, and out-and-out thefts to this day find buyers who know full well that the sale was illegal or dubious at best. Stolen art typically sells for a sliver of the market estimation anyway, but the massive dormification of the Munch piece marginally increases the degree of risk involved with the purchase. Mostly, though, the thieves know they can get more by ransom than by the offers they may receive. On the other hand, they invite greater risk to themselves with a ransom than with a discrete sale.
My initial guess was that these goons were hired for the purpose—they certainly don't have a professional interest in art, since they not only apparently dropped the paintings in the process but also ripped it from its frame and glass. I doubt anyone who realizes that Munch painted The Scream on a piece of cardboard would do expose it even for the sake of a getaway. Goons or amateurs, they've almost certainly destroyed the piece. (And the Munch Museum did not insure the painting. There's a real abundance of stupidity to attribute in this story.)
Interestingly enough, stolen art is more difficult to reobtain once it's been identified than you might think, mostly because stolen art often winds up in wealthy American hands even though American museums have led the charge in returning stolen art and advising international standards of governance. Tricky stuff.
UPDATE: Reading over that statistic, I think that art ranks as the third most moneymakin' trade in the States, not third in volume—but it's still hundreds of thousands of works we're talking about. The language isn't precise but I don't think there are more Albrecht Durers than Honda Accords passing through the shadows of the black market.
Posted by Kriston at August 23, 2004 1:28 PMThough surely the biggest winner for stupidity is not the failure to insure the work (isn't it supposed to be "priceless"?) but the failure to secure it properly in the first place. Another version of The Scream was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo in '94, apparently with similarly crappy security. Is it really that expensive to put a lockdown system, so that anytime a work is removed from its place, it trips an alarm and makes the exits impassable?
All this reminds me of the story about the guy who stole a ton of art from minor European museums, and whose mama chucked 'em into a river to destroy the proof of the crime. Ah, the gene pool.
Posted by: PG at August 24, 2004 4:02 PMIt was reasonably secured, Oslo claims. They say a silent alarm was tripped and that police arrived moments after the thieves escaped. However my definition of "reasonably secured" means that "stuff doesn't get stolen," to some degree in an arts institution you must depend on either bon homie or serious polizia.
Posted by: Kriston at August 24, 2004 4:09 PMI guess there are conflicting media reports on this:
Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, the Norwegian culture minister, admitted that there had been inadequate security.
A silent alarm attached to flimsy wires upon which the paintings hung was the only direct security measure. It remains unclear whether the alarm actually sounded at a local police station, but officers arrived at the scene 20 minutes after the theft.
