Good morning. The British Museum is reeling from the discovery that gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD are either missing or stolen.
A senior curator, who worked at the institution for 30 years, was dramatically dismissed after the items were discovered missing. His family deny he had anything to do with the lost items.
The police have launched an investigation, while the British Museum has imposed “emergency measures” to increase security.
This isn’t a first for the museum. A number of coins and medals were taken in the 1970s, while Roman coins were stolen in 1993. In 2002, a 2,500-year-old, 12cm-high Greek statue was taken, followed two years later by Chinese jewellery. In 2011, a £750,000 Cartier diamond ring from the heritage asset collection went missing – a fact that wasn’t revealed to the public until 2017.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Dutch art detective Arthur Brand, who has recovered stolen artefacts worth up to €400m (£340m) and has been dubbed “the Indiana Jones of the art world”, about why art thefts are incredibly difficult to prevent – and what goes into recovering these treasures.
In depth: ‘The problem is that art crime is not a priority’
Over the past two decades, Arthur Brand has gained acclaim for his work as an art detective, recovering a stolen Picasso painting Buste de Femme; a pair of Nazi-era bronze horses by Josef Thorak, one of Hitler’s favourite artists; a 1941 Salvador Dali; and a 1929 Tamara de Lempicka.
He does so working closely with police forces in different countries. Strapped for expertise and manpower, they are only too happy to get his help. At first, he says, he was anxious about coming face to face with the perpetrators. “But I thought, why is the mafia boss in front of me sweating too? I started to realise they always think that, wherever I am, the police are somewhere hidden in a tree, which is not true. When I realised that they are more afraid of me than I am of them, I started to relax.”
When people think of art theft, their minds may wander to the world’s most valuable collections, or recognisable paintings and statues. But if you’re looking to make money – and for your crimes to maybe even go unnoticed – it’s far more difficult to do so by stealing rare items. “If you steal a Van Gogh, who are you going to sell it to? It’s in newspapers everywhere, it’s easily recognisable,” he says. “But if you steal a golden Roman ring, there are tens of thousands, which you cannot recognise.”
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‘The problem is far bigger than we realise’
The British Museum attracts millions of visitors every year. But the items out on display, thought to be about 80,000, represent roughly 1% of the institution’s collection of objects. The rest, roughly 8m items, are held in storage.
While there will likely be more calls for the museum to improve its security after this incident, Brand is keen to stress that thefts like this “happen in every museum in the world”. That said, this doesn’t mean it is a trivial problem. “I think the problem is far bigger than we realise, that far more items have been stolen. This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “We should prepare for worse, because more cases like this will pop up.”
The problem, he says, stems from the fact that there isn’t an inventory system of what items the museum has in its possession, many of which – as mentioned above – are far from instantly recognisable. “There are hundreds of thousands of small objects [in storage] and many of them have not been categorised,” he explains. “So sometimes nobody finds out [if something is stolen]. They just put it in a pocket and they go away … if pieces have been categorised, and we know that they are missing, and there are pictures, then you can go hunting for them. You can publish them and say, ‘Who has seen this piece?’ But if you don’t have them, not even an art squad can do anything.”
Moreover, in London, there are only two officers dedicated to cultural heritage crimes, according to Art Recovery International. In the Netherlands, where Brand is based, there are also just a handful of officers. “The problem is that art crime is not a priority,” he says. “Drugs is, terrorism is, killings; those are a priority, art is not a priority. But if you steal gold from a museum, it’s still theft.”
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‘You have to trust people’
Investigations continue into whether or not the senior curator took the items, which are small, lesser-known pieces of jewellery as well as glass and stones.
Brand explains that these would be the easiest items to take, in order to sell them on or repurpose them. “Gold, silver, you can melt that down, and jewellery from whatever era, if there are diamonds in it, you can dismantle it and sell them separately,” he says.
While most jewellers run a reputable business, there are some who would look the other way. “So imagine that you steal something from a museum that has not been categorised, that will be dismantled or be melted down by a corrupt jeweller, it doesn’t matter if you have a million police officers working at the art squad, or one – there is no difference,” Brand says.
There is, he adds, a limit to how much security a museum can have: “You also have to trust people. You cannot do a full body search every time your senior curators leave the building.”
Even after categorising every object in its collection – a huge feat in itself – an organisation such as the British Museum would then need to employ regular checks, all while its collections grow. “Stuff keeps coming in, from diggings and people who leave stuff to them,” says Brand.
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An $8bn-a-year problem
The theft at the British Museum may have come as a shock to many, but Brand says it shouldn’t. “The world of art is a very interesting, very beautiful world, but there is also a dark side to it: forgeries and theft. We are talking about $8bn a year in art crime.”
Brand describes the lure of gold as a disease – and ultimately a curse. In 2019, he recovered Oscar Wilde’s stolen friendship ring. “For 5,000 years, people have been killing each other for gold. I put it on my finger and I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings. I could hardly get it off.”
What else we’ve been reading
England were “heartbroken” after their World Cup bid ended as Spain claimed their first title in a hard-fought 1-0 victory in the final at Stadium Australia. The Lionesses said they “gave everything” but just weren’t able to clinch the win. Nazia Parveen, acting deputy editor, newsletters
After the guilty verdicts, Lucy Letby has become one of the most persistent child killers in modern British history. Reporters Josh Halliday and Jamie Grierson detail how this seemingly “ordinary” woman became one of the most notorious female murderers of the last century. Aamna
“It’s like comfort eating”: Zoe Williams considers the popularity of Colleen Hoover, the US author who has garnered legions of fans with her YA-adjacent novels. Hannah J Davies
As the actors’ and writers’ strikes in Hollywood continue, Daisy Schofield turns the lens to reality TV stars and asks if now is the time to demand change. Aamna
In this beautiful extract from her new book, food writer Bee Wilson talks about getting her appetite back after a tough period, and the recipes that helped her through. Hannah
The front pages
Perhaps not the souvenir front page we might have hoped to offer today, but the Guardian still pays tribute to England’s Lionesses in their moment of “Pride and pain”. Disconsolate players are on the front of the Daily Telegraph though the accompanying story says a nation remains grateful – the lead story in that paper is “Letby can be forced to face families in court”. “We still think the World of you” says the Sun while the Times has “Don’t think it’s all over, say Lionesses” – its lead story is “Letby police fear that she attacked 30 more babies”. “Heroes to the end, our brave, battered but beaten Lionesses” – that’s the Daily Mail whose news lead is “Make coward Letby face us!”. “Proud of you” says the Daily Mirror which touts a souvenir pullout. “Heartbreak” says the i while “Tories tell Sunak to sack Braverman” also gets a spot. It’s montage Monday in the Metro which accompanies its front-page imagery with “You all did us proud”. Even the Financial Times gets into the spirit with “Reign of Spain – England hopes dashed in final”, sharing the front page with “Beijing pushes for Brics expansion in effort to create stronger rival to G7”. “Pride of nation” says the Daily Express of the Lionesses while its splash is “King brings Andrew ‘in from cold’”.
Today in Focus
Cotton Capital: The Sea Islands – episode 3
Revisited: In the third episode in the series, journalist DeNeen L Brown travels to the Sea Islands in the US and meets the Gullah Geechee people – direct descendants of enslaved Africans who picked the distinctive Sea Island cotton prized by traders in Manchester
Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
“Nothing is going to make me cringe or cower,” says Joy France, who was once painfully shy, and now enjoys dishing out insults – and receiving them – as a battle rapper. The former teacher gave up a “predictable” life, as she tells Paula Cocozza in the Guardian’s latest A new start after 60 column, in favour of giving new things a go and “following coincidences”. An interest in poetry eventually led her to battle rap, and the rest is history. “[In the future] I will be able to think that I enjoyed the world – and hopefully made the world a better place by interacting with people,” she says.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
