Stolen, Forged Artworks Can Lead To Significant Financial Frauds

Art crime is big business – and can lead to very large financial frauds when stolen or forged artworks pass through the marketplace. One quip is to the effect that of the 4,000 paintings produced by the artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, 7,000 are in the United States.   

Indeed, it has been 20 years since the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, the largest property crime in U.S. history. The two men who robbed the museum gained access to the building dressed as police officers. Once inside, they overpowered security guards, tied them up with duct tape, and proceeded to steal 13 objects valued at $500 million. In addition to Degas sketches and Rembrandt works, they took a Vermeer painting (“The Concert”) that was one of only 35 in existence. That crime has not been solved. 
 
We were reminded of this today when the FBI pointed out that its Art Crime Team has recovered more than 2,400 objects worth more than $142 million in the five years since it was created.
 
And, it gives us the opportunity to post Vermeer’s, “The Concert.” If you know where it is, let us, or the FBI, know.