AIBU to wonder what happens to stolen famous artworks afterwards?

Erm they are usually stolen to order. Someone filthy rich wants a particular painting to add to his collection. Or, it is sold later to people who are known to buy stolen artwork.

Ooh please tell me it was the toilet!

Well Obviously 🤣

It;s like any precious commodity, i.e. gold, diamonds, a super yacht, a super car, or whatever. It's "worth" what it's worth because someone is prepared to pay that for it, whether in cash or "money's worth". Someone accepting a stolen painting worth say £10m regards it as "worth" £10 million because they know/expect to be able to either get cash or goods for that amount by "selling" it or exchanging it to someone else.

Because it's traded in circles where the people buying and selling don't care about legalities. One gang of drug dealers aren't going to be bothered about a stolen painting "worth" millions because they know another drug gang will take it in payment for a container of drugs, and the recipient will then hold it and keep it to use as "currency" for another drug deal, and so it goes on. Likewise arms, people/child trafficking etc.

noah Charney or Micheal fikel? Just adding to my wish list!

I suppose so. Maybe it’s an individual thing as well, maybe I would be a very uncultured drug lord crime boss, but if I were offered payment with a Da Vinci in lieu of cash, I’d say no thank you I’ll have the money so I can blow it on things I won’t have to hide or which would blow my cover if discovered 😂
Great thread.

It’s not quite the same as this latest theft but I’d really recommend the book The Art Thief. Fascinating.

Passed on to dictators, dodgy collectors, drug barons or oligarchs. Please note the fate of "The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies" by van Clomp.

I guess at the same time, why does it lose value because it’s been stolen. If it’s intrinsically valuable it should retain it to some degree surely?

like how can you say one day the Mona Lisa is worth a trillion pounds then the next nothing because it’s stolen? What made it worth a trillion in the first place in that case?

What I don’t understand is how the art retains its value to even be used as currency. How is the ‘currency’ not redundant if it can’t ever be known about/it’s existence acknowledged/shown off?

This. From the little I know this is how i understand it. It’s absolutely fascinating- I hadn’t even realised how un scientific provenance is, many works have been misclassified or rediscovered.

stolen nazi works are sold now. There are not only factions/ organised crime who deal in this, but entire countries where this sort of thing can happen.

also i think it opens up really interesting questions about monetary value and how it’s assigned- ie digital art that can be deleted, the guy who bought the banana then ate it, the shredder etc…. What is art and how do we exchange it for money?! What is money even worth? The philosophy of it all is endless 😂

Surely if it is 'hot' it can't have that much collateral as there wouldn't be that much of a market for a stolen piece of art work, and with modern records it would be easy to trace the rightful owner if ever placed up for auction. It sounds like having the mona lisa etc would be more hassle than it's worth for criminal gangs.

I assume it's just stolen by order for a spoilt mega rich person who is just not use to being told no you can't have something and it is then either hidden away and then secretly admired from time to time or they put it on the wall and claim it's a copy.

Some go to secret collections.

Others can sometimes be used as collatoral.

Oganised criminals "get away" with far worse things than dealing in stolen artworks, i.e. money laundering, slavery, GBH, murder, drug dealing, arms dealing, tax evasion, etc etc .

Kinda disturbing if you think about it. What else do wealthy people get away with?

😂

Mostly used by organised crime gangs as "currency" for drugs and arms deals.

Villains, like this

Well it is an investment because even though it doesn't maintain its provenance and therefore cannot be sold on the open market, it can (and will) be resold on the black market as the value increases. It may well emerge generations later onto the open market once it has been 'laundered' and passed through multiple dodgy dealers, like the art and artefacts stolen by the Nazi regime has.

This!

Something Faberge' i am so ordinary nobody is going to come looking for a Faberge egg displayed on the fireplace !

Why OP - do you have a couple of french pieces your trying to get rid of? 😂

If I had a priceless work of art I'd hang it in my bedroom where I could enjoy it every day.

I have a wish list. Anyone fancy an art heist?

According to the crime thrillers i watch 😀 the stolen objects can currency so they are passed around as payment for dodgy dealings. I always imagine oligarchs and the mega rich have vaults of stolen art just because they want it.