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This book brings together empirical and theoretical case-study research on art and heritage crime. Drawn from a diverse group of researchers and professionals, the work presented explores contemporary conceptualisations of art crime within broader contexts. In this volume, we see ‘art’ in its usual forms for art crime scholarship: in paintings and antiquities. However, we also see art in fossils and in violins, chairs and jewellery, holes in the ground and even in the institutions meant to protect any, or all, of the above. And where there is art, there is crime. Chapters in this volume, alternatively, zoom in on specific objects, on specific locations, and on specific institutions, considering how each interact with the various conceptions of crime that exist in those contexts. This volume challenges the boundaries of what we understand as “art and heritage crimes” and displays that both art, and criminality related to art, is creative and unpredictable.

This book brings together empirical and theoretical case-study research on art and heritage crime. Drawn from a diverse group of researchers and professionals, the work presented explores contemporary conceptualisations of art crime within broader contexts. In this volume, we see ‘art’ in its usual forms for art crime scholarship: in paintings and antiquities. However, we also see art in fossils and in violins, chairs and jewellery, holes in the ground and even in the institutions meant to protect any, or all, of the above. And where there is art, there is crime. Chapters in this volume, alternatively, zoom in on specific objects, on specific locations, and on specific institutions, considering how each interact with the various conceptions of crime that exist in those contexts. This volume challenges the boundaries of what we understand as “art and heritage crimes” and displays that both art, and criminality related to art, is creative and unpredictable.

This book brings together empirical and theoretical case-study research on art and heritage crime. Drawn from a diverse group of researchers and professionals, the work presented explores contemporary conceptualisations of art crime within broader contexts. In this volume, we see ‘art’ in its usual forms for art crime scholarship: in paintings and antiquities. However, we also see art in fossils and in violins, chairs and jewellery, holes in the ground and even in the institutions meant to protect any, or all, of the above. And where there is art, there is crime. Chapters in this volume, alternatively, zoom in on specific objects, on specific locations, and on specific institutions, considering how each interact with the various conceptions of crime that exist in those contexts. This volume challenges the boundaries of what we understand as “art and heritage crimes” and displays that both art, and criminality related to art, is creative and unpredictable.

This is the final text version of the article, it may contain minor differences from the publisher’s pdf version. The art of expressionist painter Edvard Munch has been the target of numerous thefts in Norway. This article considers the history of risk management in two victimized museums, and the influence of past challenges on contemporary views regarding the role of security. Empirical research suggest that the institutions studied, by giving priority to accessibility and art mediation, combined with unawareness of risk and lack of funding, have compromised security and inadvertently made the art a suitable target for crime. Demonstrating a reactive rather than a proactive approach to risk management, victimization and public exposure of security oversights have led to gradual policy changes in the museums. While stricter security has deterred thefts, several respondents described the response as over-securitization, with counterproductive effects on staff and visitors. Findings reveal that the responsibility to ensure public access, stimulate art appreciation and safeguard collections represents a conflict of interest between professionals working in museums that continue to challenge the development of preventative measures.

This volume brings together work by authors who draw upon sociological and criminological methods, theory, and frameworks, to produce research that pushes boundaries, considers new questions, and reshape the existing understanding of "art crimes", with a strong emphasis on methodological innovation and novel theory application. Criminologists and sociologists are poorly represented in academic discourse on art and culture related crimes. However, to understand topics like theft, security, trafficking, forgery, vandalism, offender motivation, the efficacy of and results of policy interventions, and the effects art crimes have on communities, we must develop the theoretical and methodological models we use for analyses. The readership of this book is expected to include academics, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of criminology, sociology, law, and heritage studies who have an interest in art and heritage crime.

V kriminaliteto, povezano z umetninami, so največkrat vpletene mednarodno dejavne organizirane kriminalne združbe, ki se ukvarjajo s pranjem denarja, preprodajo prepovedanih drog in izsiljevanjem. Dinamika kaznivih dejanj zoper umetnine je vse večja, storilci pa so vedno bolje organizirani. Najpogostejše tarče tovrstnih združb so cerkve, zasebne umetniške zbirke in muzeji, njihov najbolj zaželeni plen pa so umetniška dela svetovno znanih umetnikov. Najpogostejši motiv storilcev kaznivih dejanj zoper umetnine je pohlep po denarju. Dejstvo, da ima kriminaliteta organiziranih združb mednarodni značaj, da je za odkrivanje tovrstne kriminalitete potrebno posebno znanje, kakor tudi dejstvo, da je pripravljenost dražbenih hiš za sodelovanje pri odkrivanju tovrstnih kaznivih dejanj še vedno podrejena želji po zaslužku, predstavljata glavne težave pri preiskovanju kriminalitete, povezane z umetninami. Zato je še kako pomembno mednarodno sodelovanje policijskih enot. Avtor na podlagi analize izbranih primerov tatvin umetnin in analize intervjujev strokovnjakov na področju kaznivih dejanj zoper umetnine, opravljenih v nemško in angleško govorečem področju, ponudi poglobljen vpogled v neznani svet delovanja organiziranih kriminalnih združb, opredeli glavne težave pri preiskovanju kriminalitete, povezane z umetninami, in si posledično izoblikuje mnenje o storilcih kaznivih dejanj, kakšen je njihov motiv, kje so ukradene slike in na kakšne načine se le-te prodajo novemu kupcu oziroma kako in na kakšen način izsiljujejo lastnike umetnin. Pri tem si avtor v nalogi prizadeva odgovoriti na dve ključni vprašanji, in sicer prvič, ali so storilci kaznivih dejanj zoper umetnine ljubitelji in poznavalci umetnosti in drugič, ali so tatvine umetnin izvedene za vnaprej znanega naročnika. Art-related crime is mostly performed by internationally organized crime groups involved in money laundering, drug trafficking and extortion. The dynamics of crimes against art are increasing and the perpetrators are increasingly getting more organized. Churches, private art collections and museums are the most common targets of this type of groups, and their most desirable prey is artworks by world-renowned artists. The most common motive among perpetrators is the greed for money. The fact that organized crime has an international character, that special knowledge is required in order to detect such crime, as well as the fact that the willingness and preparedness of auction houses to cooperate in detecting such crimes are still inferior to the desire for money, represent the main problems in investigating art-related crime. That is why the international cooperation of police organisations is even more important. Based on the analysis of selected cases of art theft and the analysis of interviews with experts in the field of offenses against artworks done in German and English speaking areas, the author offers an in-depth insight into the unknown world of organized crime groups, identifies major problems in investigating art-related crime, and as a result, forms an opinion about the perpetrators, their motive, the locations, where the pictures are stolen and the modus, in which they are sold to the new buyer, or the art owners are being held to ransom. In doing so, the author seeks to answer two key questions, first, whether the perpetrators of art related crimes are amateurs and connoisseurs of art, and second, whether art thefts have been carried out for a known client.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 14th, a golden toilet named America was stolen from the birthplace of Winston Churchill. Artist Maurizio Cattelan crafted the piece of art in 2016 for an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The toilet is fully functional and was designed to resemble the other toilets in the museum. Patrons had the opportunity to use the costly commode, crafted entirely of 18-carat gold, for the purposes for which such items are typically intended. The work was installed on Thursday of last week, again, in a fully functional fashion, in Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. A 66-year-old man is in custody in connection with the incident.

When the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia, both Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were brought in by the Paris police for questioning. They were innocent of having stolen the Mona Lisa, but they were in fact guilty of having stolen other art from the Louvre—for in Picasso’s dresser lay hidden several ancient Iberian statue heads that had been stolen from the Louvre in 1907 by Apollinaire’s secretary, Honore-Joseph Gery Pieret, almost certainly on commission from Picasso himself, who may also have assisted in the theft. Picasso’s involvement in art theft is little known, even though the so-called “affaire des statuettes” made international headlines in 1911. The theft did influence Picasso’s art and rise of Modernism, for the stolen statue heads were integrated into Picasso’s famous paintings, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), which is widely considered to be the first great work of Modernism. This article tells the complete, true story of Picasso and Apollinaire’s involvement in art theft, and the “affaire des statuettes.” When the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia, both Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were brought in by the Paris police for questioning. They were innocent of having stolen the Mona Lisa, but they were in fact guilty of having stolen other art from the Louvre—for in Picasso’s dresser lay hidden several ancient Iberian statue heads that had been stolen from the Louvre in 1907 by Apollinaire’s secretary, Honore-Joseph Gery Pieret, almost certainly on commission from Picasso himself, who may also have assisted in the theft. Picasso’s involvement in art theft is little known, even though the so-called “affaire des statuettes” made international headlines in 1911. The theft did influence Picasso’s art and rise of Modernism, for the stolen statue heads were integrated into Picasso’s famous paintings, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), which is widely considered to be the first great work of Modernism. This article tells the complete, true story of Picasso and Apollinaire’s involvement in art theft, and the “affaire des statuettes.”

Recent developments offer the possibility of using a security marker that contains a unique code that cannot be forged, and which can be detected at very low concentrations even if attempts have been made to remove it. The way in which these systems work is explained, and some of their advantages and disadvantages for libraries are examined.