Kunsthal theft trial
July 16 2013
Picture: AFP via Art Daily
Last year in Rotterdam thieves stole seven important pictures by the likes of Picasso and Monet from the Kunsthal. Now, even though no pictures have been recovered, six Romanians are to stand trial for the theft in Bucharest. More on Art Daily here.
Update - the mother of one of the alleged thieves claims she burnt the paintings. From AP:
A Romanian museum is analyzing ashes found in a stove to see if they are the remains of seven paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and others that were stolen last year from the Netherlands, an official said Tuesday.
Prosecutor spokeswoman Gabriela Chiru told The Associated Press that Romania's National History Museum is examining the ashes found in the stove of Olga Dogaru. She is the mother of Radu Dogaru, one of three Romanian suspects charged with stealing the paintings from Rotterdam's Kunsthal gallery in a brazen daytime heist.
It was the biggest art theft in more than a decade in the Netherlands. The stolen works have an estimated value of tens of millions of dollars if they were sold at auction.
Dogaru told investigators she was scared for her son after he was arrested in January and buried the art in an abandoned house and then in a cemetery in the village of Caracliu. She said she later dug them up and burned them in February after police began searching the village for the stolen works.
Update - Mrs Dogaru is not the first art thief mum to do this. In 2002 a German woman chopped up her son's stolen art, and dumped it into the Rhine.
