Matthew Yglesias goes on vacation and his blog gets culture. Guest-blogger Alyssa notes a Smithsonian magazine list of the top 10 art heists of all time. Only three of those cases also pop up on the FBI's top-10 list, which just goes to show that the black market for art is storied.
Alyssa writes, "Prints are cool, but it's fun to imagine having the real thing tucked away to look at." But that's only ever been the established motive in one case: the theft of Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, which was stolen by . . . Dr. No. Megalomaniacal art connoisseurs don't exist—but fabricators, petty burglars, and insurance defrauders do, and they commit crimes that set the industry back $6 billion annually.
It's insurance fraud that does the worst damage. Most every high-profile, celebrity-art crime is motivated by the same form of extortion: Third-party insurance companies arbitrate the payoff between museum and thief. It's an incredibly high-risk, incredibly profitable, and incredibly routine process.
The only way to prevent against art theft is to make sure that priceless works stay priceless: Art museums should not insure their paintings against theft.
Posted by Kriston at May 28, 2008 4:07 PM