An Art Theft Anniversary

100 years ago Vincenzo Peruggia stole this painting:

The Mona Lisa

And 50 years ago Kempton Bunton stole this painting:

Goya's The Duke of Wellington

Noah Charney discusses both in an Op-Ed for the LA Times:

These two famous art thefts, the date of the latter chosen by the colorful Bunton for the theatricality of falling on the anniversary of the former, helped to mold the public perception of art theft as a crime of oddball characters who did not really harm anyone. It is true that some of the many famous art thefts of the period preceding World War II were of this ilk, involving quirky nonviolent thieves with gentlemanly aspirations.

To read more about the Mona Lisa thefts, you can read Noah Charney's long essay, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World's Most Famous Painting, available from Amazon. All of the proceeds support ARCA. You can also read my short forward to the book, where I argue that perhaps we'd all be better off had the work stayed stolen.

New Leonardo . . . does anybody care about the art?

A labratory in paris has discovered a fingerprint on this work which is "highly comparable" to one on a Leonardo da Vinci work in the Vatican.  That means this work which was purchased for $19,000 may be worth tens of millions now.  It seems there are also stylistic similarities, and this work was performed by a left-handed artist (as Leonardo was).

It is an interesting story, but again I'm reminded of the lament by Jonathan Jones that art history has become pseudoscience.  Why should we care how much this work could fetch at an auction, what about the art?  Is it a nice picture, or just a windfall investment?