[CPProt.net] Cezanne, Da Vinci on FBI's Wanted List

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Cezanne, Da Vinci on FBI's Wanted List (in Associated Press Newswires, 16
November 2005) 
By MARK SHERMAN 


00:03

(c) 2005. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. 
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI's newest most-wanted list includes a Cezanne, a Da
Vinci and a couple of Van Goghs. The bureau unveiled its top 10 art crimes
list Tuesday to call attention to a problem that Interpol ranks third among
property crimes worldwide and costs an estimated $6 billion a year. 
Art thefts can be especially frustrating to investigators because stolen
masterworks often are kept hidden for years before thieves attempt to sell
them, FBI officials said. 
"The true art in art theft is selling the stolen art," said Eric B. Ives,
who heads the FBI's major theft unit. 
Heading the list are 7,000 to 10,000 Iraqi antiquities that were stolen from
the Iraq National Museum and archaeological sites after the U.S. invasion in
2003. A handful of cylindrical seals believed to be more than 4,500 years
old have been recovered, but 5,000 remain missing. 
It also includes the biggest art heist in history, the 1990 theft of an
estimated $300 million in paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
in Boston. Among the stolen art were three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet
and five by Degas. 
Investigators continue to receive leads about the paintings, but they have
not confirmed an attempt to sell any in 15 years, said FBI Special Agent
Geoffrey J. Kelly. 
Last month, agents visited an antiques store in Reno, Nev., after receiving
a tip about the missing Vermeer. "It was just a copy, but a good copy,"
Kelly said. 
Other thefts on the list are: 
-- Munch's "The Scream" and "Madonna" from the Munch Museum in Oslo, 2004. 
-- Benevenuto Cellini's salt cellar from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum,
2003. 
-- Caravaggio's "Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco" from Palermo,
1969. 
-- Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius violin from a New York apartment, 1995. 
-- Two Van Gogh paintings from Amsterdam's Vincent Van Gogh Museum, 2002. 
-- Cezanne's "View of Auvers-sur-Oise" from Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, 1999.

-- Da Vinci's "Madonna of the Yarnwinder" from Scotland's Drumlanrig Castle,
2003. 
One crime on the list has been solved. Authorities have recovered two
Renoirs and a Rembrandt self-portrait that were taken from Sweden's National
Museum in 2000. Danish police arrested four people in a raid on a Copenhagen
hotel in September after FBI agent Robert K. Wittman posed as a buyer for
the Rembrandt, which dates from 1630 and is valued at $36 million. 
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On the Net: 
FBI Art Theft Program: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm