Art theft is usually for the purpose of resale or for ransom (sometimes called artnapping). Stolen art is sometimes used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—estimates range from 5 to 10%. This means that little is known about the scope and characteristics of art theft.
Read more about Art Theft: Individual Theft, Prevention in Museums, Recovery, State Theft, Wartime Looting and Misappropriation By Museums, Famous Cases of Art Theft, Notable Unrecovered Works, Fictional Art Theft
Famous quotes containing the words art and/or theft:
“May we not assure ourselves that whatever woman’s thought and study shall embrace will thereby receive a new inspiration, that she will save science from materialism, and art from a gross realism; that the “eternal womanly shall lead upward and onward”?”
—Louisa Parsons Hopkins, U.S. scientist and author. As quoted in The Fair Women, ch. 16, by Jeanne Madeline Weimann (1981)
“The childless experts on child raising also bring tears of laughter to my eyes when they say, “I love children because they’re so honest.” There is not an agent in the CIA or the KGB who knows how to conceal the theft of food, how to fake being asleep, or how to forge a parent’s signature like a child.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)