Romanian Mom may have burnt stolen paintings worth millions

[Syt]

  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jul/17/dutch-art-heist-paintings-burned

Dutch art heist paintings may have been burned by suspect's mother

Forensic specialists find traces of paint and canvas in ashes from oven belonging to Romanian woman

Ash from an oven owned by a woman whose son is charged with stealing seven multimillion-pound paintings, including works by Matisse, Picasso and Monet, contained paint, canvas and nails, a Romanian museum official said on Wednesday.

The discovery could be evidence that Olga Dogaru was telling the truth when she claimed to have burned the paintings, which were taken from Rotterdam's Kunsthal gallery last year in a daylight heist.

Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of Romania's National History Museum, told the Associated Press that museum forensic specialists had found small fragments of painting primer, the remains of canvas and paint, and copper and steel nails, some of which pre-dated the 20th century.

"We discovered a series of substances which are specific to paintings and pictures," he said, including lead, zinc and azurite.

He refused to say definitively that the ashes were from the stolen paintings. He said justice officials would make that decision.

He did venture, however, that if the remains were those of the paintings, it was "a crime against humanity to destroy universal art".

"I can't believe in 2013 that we come across such acts," he said.

Oberlander-Tarnoveanu said forensic specialists at the museum had been analysing ashes from the stove since March, and would hand their results to prosecutors next week.

The seven paintings were stolen in October in the biggest art heist to hit the Netherlands for more than a decade. Thieves broke in through a rear emergency exit of the gallery, grabbed the paintings off the wall and fled within two minutes.

The works would have an estimated value of tens of millions of pounds if they were sold at auction.

Thieves took Pablo Picasso's 1971 Harlequin Head; Claude Monet's 1901 Waterloo Bridge, London, and Charing Cross Bridge, London; Henri Matisse's 1919 Reading Girl in White and Yellow; Paul Gauguin's 1898 Girl in Front of Open Window; Meyer de Haan's Self-Portrait, of around 1890; and Lucian Freud's 2002 work Woman with Eyes Closed.

Three Romanian suspects were arrested in January, but the paintings were not found.

Romanian prosecutors say Olga Dogaru, whose son is the alleged heist ringleader, claims she buried the art in an abandoned house and then in a cemetery in the village of Caracliu. She said she later dug up the paintings and burned them in February after police began searching the village for the stolen works.

Prosecutors have not said whether they believe her account, but Pavel Susara, a Romanian art critic, said the story had the ring of truth.

"Olga Dogaru describes how she made the fire, put wood on it and burned the paintings, like she was burning a pair of slippers," he said. "She's either a repressed writer or she is describing exactly what she did."

The museum staff found exactly what forensic experts said they were seeking – materials such as canvas, wood, staples, and paints that indicate the remains of artworks.

The next step would be to compare these to what was known about the missing paintings, which given their quality and status would be well-documented in photographs and condition reports.

"If one finds general similarities between the stolen works and the burned [remains], then one could test the elemental, and possibly chemical, composition of the burned works to determine if they could be consistent with the stolen works," said James Martin, of Orion Analytical, who has taught forensic paint analysis at the FBI Academy counter-terrorism and forensic science research unit.

Art market experts said the Rotterdam thieves may have discovered what many art thieves had before them – that easily identifiable paintings by famous artists were extremely difficult to sell at anything like their auction value.

"Criminals who are successful in their usual endeavours are often undone by a foray into art theft," said Robert Korzinek, a fine art underwriter at the insurer Hiscox. "They steal these works of art ... and then they have the problem that they can't dispose of them."

That means many works suffer ignominious fates. Some are lost forever; others turn up after years of being buried or stashed in storage.

Edvard Munch's The Scream, stolen from an Oslo museum in 2004, was recovered in 2006, water damaged and torn. Police have never offered details on the painting's whereabouts during those two years.

Chris Marinello, of the Art Loss Register, which specialises in tracking down stolen artworks, said that if Dogaru was telling the truth, "this isn't the first time the mothers of art thieves have come to the rescue of their son".

One case involved a prolific French criminal named Stephane Breitwieser, who stole more than 200 works from small museums across Europe in the late 1990s.

His mother admitted destroying dozens of the works after police began investigating her son. She cut up paintings, stuffed the remnants down her garbage disposal and threw valuable jewels and other antiquities into a canal.

She was arrested after some of the items resurfaced. "Old Masters were washing up on the bank," Marinello said.

More than 100 works were recovered from the mud and restored, but much of what Breitwieser stole was lost forever.

Mariette Maaskant, spokeswoman for Rotterdam's Kunsthal, said Dogaru's allegation "underscores the pointlessness of the theft".

She added: "If this terrible news is true, the last trace of hope that the art works would return is definitively gone. It would be a loss that touches every art lover."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jul/17/stolen-picasso-burned-romania

Stolen Picasso 'burned in stove' in Romania

Museum analyses ashes for proof they are paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and others stolen from Rotterdam gallery

A Romanian museum is analysing ashes found in a stove to see if they are the remains of seven paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and others that were stolen last year from the Netherlands, an official has said.

The prosecutor's spokeswoman, Gabriela Chiru, told Associated Press that Romania's National History Museum was examining the ashes found in the stove of Olga Dogaru. She is the mother of Radu Dogaru, one of three Romanian suspects charged with stealing the paintings from Rotterdam's Kunsthal gallery in a daytime heist.

It was the biggest art theft in more than a decade in the Netherlands. The stolen works have an estimated value of tens of millions of dollars if they were sold at auction.

Dogaru told investigators she was scared for her son after he was arrested in January and buried the art in an abandoned house and then in a cemetery in the village of Caracliu. She said she later dug them up and burned them in February after police began searching the village for the stolen works.

Chiru indicated that authorities did not necessarily believe Dogaru's account. She said it could take months for the results of the tests to be known.

Thieves broke into the museum on 16 October through a rear emergency exit, took the paintings from the wall and fled, all within two minutes.

Police who arrived less than five minutes after the break-in triggered an alarm found nothing but empty spaces on the walls, broken hanging wires and tyre tracks in grass behind the gallery.

The stolen paintings were: Picasso's 1971 Harlequin Head; Monet's 1901 Waterloo Bridge, London and Charing Cross Bridge, London; Matisse's 1919 Reading Girl in White and Yellow; Paul Gauguin's 1898 Girl in Front of Open Window; Meyer de Haan's Self-Portrait, around 1890; and Lucian Freud's 2002 work Woman With Eyes Closed.

Radu Dogaru, the alleged ringleader, remains in custody along with two other suspects as investigators seek the paintings and other evidence.

The stolen paintings came from the private Triton Foundation, a collection of avant-garde art put together by multimillionaire Willem Cordia, an investor and businessman, and his wife, Marijke Cordia-Van der Laan. Cordia died in 2011.

[garbon]

"Crime against humanity"?

[DGuller]

Maybe she was cold.

[Jacob]

"Crime against humanity"?

Well, of course you think it's trivial since you don't have much of it in the first place

[garbon]

"Crime against humanity"?

Well, of course you think it's trivial since you don't have much of it in the first place

I don't think the loss of the works is insignificant but that shrill hyperbole I think will do little to generate concern from the general public.

[Jacob]

I don't think the loss of the works is insignificant but that shrill hyperbole I think will do little to generate concern from the general public.

True enough. I don't think anything, shrill hyperbole or reasoned argument, will generate much concern from the general public in this case.

The "no humanity thing" was just a cheap dig with no substance. You have plenty of humanity

[Josephus]

Artist should have made a backup.

[DGuller]

Artist should have made a backup.

[The Brain]

I fail to be very upset over the loss of some paintings of which we have good pictures.

[Tonitrus]

"Crime against humanity"?

There's a precedent involving burning things in eastern European ovens.

[garbon]

I don't think the loss of the works is insignificant but that shrill hyperbole I think will do little to generate concern from the general public.

True enough. I don't think anything, shrill hyperbole or reasoned argument, will generate much concern from the general public in this case.

The "no humanity thing" was just a cheap dig with no substance. You have plenty of humanity

[garbon]

"Crime against humanity"?

There's a precedent involving burning things in eastern European ovens.

That makes it more offensive as works of art (no matter how precious) aren't people.

[Eddie Teach]

I fail to be very upset over the loss of some paintings of which we have good pictures.

Indeed. The artists' work survives.

[garbon]

I fail to be very upset over the loss of some paintings of which we have good pictures.

Trash begets trashy opinions.

[Siege]

Good riddance.
Fuck, I need to learn to spell properly in English.
Hardest language evah!