August 27, 2004
The Future of Art Theft
While the recent home-invasion-style theft of two Edvard Munch paintings — including the omnipresent "Scream" — from a museum in Oslo might seem unusual, Slate's Marc Spiegler explains that high-tech security systems have made laser-dodging art burglars a thing of the past. Art thieves now frequently resort to force. He writes:
The more widespread such systems become, the harder it is to steal using subterfuge. Which leads us ineluctably to armed robbery—by far the riskiest tactic, but also the surest way to actually leave the premises with works in hand. While the Munch theft was certainly the most high-profile violent art heist, it was not unprecedented. Last year, for example, a gang of thieves sledgehammered display cases containing art deco jewelry at the Antwerp Diamond Museum. Another team drove an SUV right into the Rothschild family's English mansion, crashing through a reinforced window to launch a four-minute, multimillion-dollar raid that garnered them a passel of antique gold boxes. Perhaps the only upside of the Munch heist was that nobody was killed; in May, thieves slit the throat of a guard during a robbery at Antigua's Museum of Colonial Art.
posted by at 03:26 AM
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