The list of recovered treasures is impressive–400 hand-edited pages of “The Good Earth” manuscript, an original copy of the Bill of Rights, the Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement, and the headdress that Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow–to name just a few. 

Robert K. Whittman founded the FBI’s Art Crime Team. In retirement he has written a memoir of his career. “Priceless” details his undercover encounters with a host of art thieves—some competent and dangerous, others ineffective and bumbling.

Whether or not thieves know the value of the art they steal, they soon find there’s no easy way to turn it into cash. That fact created opportunities for Wittman, who posed as a buyer, allowing himself to be courted, sometimes for months on end. Only when the deal finally closed would the seller learn that his buyer was an undercover FBI agent.

Wittman now runs Robert Wittman Inc., a Security and Recovery Consulting firm that assists auction houses, collectors, galleries, insurance companies and other institutions in protecting their cultural assets.

In June, 2011 Robert Wittman Inc. is offering a five-day seminar on Art Crime Investigation in Philadelphia, PA.

Security is one of many considerations when buying fine art. For a comprehensive take on all aspects, it’s hard to beat The Art of Buying Art by Alan S. Bamberger, noted art expert, author, and syndicated columnist. It’s generally thought to the best and easiest-to-understand book on how to buy, sell, evaluate, appraise, and collect art.

There are 26 chapters in the book, including Make Sure It’s Original, Dealer Dealings, Certificates of Authenticity and Appraisals, How Not to Buy Art, Forgers, Fakes, and Scams, and Negotiate the Buy.

Appendixes deal with auction records, price guides, appraiser associations, auction houses, artist dictionaries, encyclopedias, art periodicals, art dealers association, and other valuable references.

For those who are just beginning to collect, or who are thinking about collecting, this book, with its accessible language is a great initiation. For those who are collecting already, it is a valuable resource on how to do things right.

The theft of artwork from a Southampton, NY home is the second such heist to hit the exclusive enclave in the past month, police have revealed. One or more thieves climbed through a window at a home on Gin Lane sometime between February 14 and 16 and made off with an unknown number of works.

A few days prior, thirteen paintings reportedly worth $250,000 were taken from a different residence.  Among the items stolen then were works by Frederick H. McDuff, Jean Duffy, Jacques Martin-Ferrieres, Howard Behrens, Pierre Bittar and C. Everley. Detectives are considering the strong possibility that the two thefts are related.

Earlier in February, $750,000 worth of watches, jewelry, and works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others were stolen from a well-secured New York City building.  We reported on this incident here

The three heists highlight an alarming fact: art is valuable, and often unprotected. Even when the building itself is protected, as in the New York City case, individual pieces may not be. Seasonal and weekend residences are particularly vulnerable to theft because they are often unoccupied for long stretches of time.

A fact that is so often overlooked in the art world is that once a painting is stolen it may never be seen again, and unlike many other objects, a piece’s value is its singularity. You can’t replace it. So if the work doesn’t come back to market through a sale or recovery it may be permanently gone, maybe to be enjoyed by only one or a few people or forgotten or destroyed to cover evidence.

A recent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review points up this futility, to say nothing of the naiveté of the establishment in allowing works of sentimental, as well as real value, to be displayed without the most rudimentary protection. Hadn’t these guys heard of marbles in the frame?

“For nearly seven decades, two paintings depicting outdoor ‘sporting’ activities graced the walls of the prestigious Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township. The artworks by renowned equine artist Franklin B. Voss depicted foxhunting scenes, perfectly blending into the ambience of the private club known for its history of foxhunts and steeplechase races. On Jan. 18, 2006, both paintings disappeared. They have not been recovered.

Police said the paintings might have been carried out of the club between 5 and 9:30 p.m. that day by two thieves posing as service workers. They suspect two men wrapped the paintings and other artwork in Persian rugs and carried them outside to a van. Unsuspecting club employees thought the carpets were scheduled to be cleaned, police reports indicate. The estimated value of the haul was $68,000.”

Voss is regarded as one of the greatest American equine artists of the 20th century. Some described him as the “artist of choice among America’s sporting elite.”

Daytime, when staff and visitors are in the building, should no longer be the gift to thieves it once was. Among the simple and affordable solutions to protect hanging art is Art Guard, a hidden, battery operated, stand-alone module that alerts anyone in the building with a 120 db alarm when a piece of art or object is tampered with. A far-sighted expenditure of $100 would have these two works still hanging in place

Among all the accolades given to various works of art over the centuries, perhaps none is more unusual than this one: most-stolen. The long-reigning champion is Jan van Eyck’s Ghent’s Altarpiece.

The nearly 500-year old painting weighs two tons, and comprises twelve separate panels. As the first piece to demonstrate the versatility of oil painting, its importance in the history of art is unquestioned. Art Daily chronicles its history of theft and recovery:

Since its completion in 1432, [it] has been the victim of thirteen separate crimes, including seven separate thefts; it has been looted in three different wars, burned, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, hidden, hunted by Napoleon and then the Nazis, ransomed, and rescued by Austrian double-agents. (The runner-up, a portrait by Rembrandt, has been stolen only four times.)

In October 2010, Public Affairs released Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece. Written by Noah Charney, this 336-page real-life thriller unravels the truth behind each of the thefts. In the process Charney sheds light on the fascinating history of art crime.

Noah Charney is the author of the international bestselling novel The Art Thief and the founding director of The Association for Research into Crimes against Art, an international non-profit think tank. Currently professor of art history at the American University of Rome, he lives in Italy with his wife.

ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes against Art) is accepting applications for its 2011 Masters Program in International Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection Studies.

The official deadline for applications for the 2011 MA Program has been extended to January 21, 2011. In certain circumstances ARCA will consider late applications.

This program provides in-depth, Masters level instruction in a wide variety of theoretical and practical elements of art and heritage crime: its history, its nature, its impact, and what can be done to curb it. Courses are taught by international experts, in the beautiful setting of Umbria, Italy. This interdisciplinary program offers substantive study for art police and security professionals, lawyers, insurers, curators, conservators, members of the art trade, and post-graduate students of criminology, law, security studies, sociology, art history, archaeology, and history.

ARCA is an interdisciplinary think tank/research group on contemporary issues in art crime. This international non-profit organization studies issues in art crime and cultural property protection, runs educational programs, and consults on art protection and recovery issues brought to them by police, governments, museums, places of worship, and other public institutions.

Art Guard views ARCA as the preeminent educational program on art crime and a foundation in the refinement of the process of aggregating and disseminating information about crimes in the art world. As an affordable, state-of-the-art means of protection against art theft, Art Guard is playing a role in closing the gap in security. The effective collaboration of technology and education, such as that between Art Guard and ARCA, will continue to lessen the threat of art loss, as well as that of cultural artifacts, word wide.

The brazen theft of iconoclastic paintings from a well-secured New York City building has highlighted the need for additional measures to protect hanging art. Police estimated that thieves made off with $750,000 worth of watches, jewelry, and works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others.

The thieves bypassed several state-of-the-art security measures to get into the five-story building, the New York Post reported. The sole elevator was key-operated, and surveillance cameras were operating inside the apartment. But the thieves made off with the video recorder attached to the cameras, taking the evidence of the crime with them. The apartment was entered by drilling a hole through the wall of a hallway sometime between Nov. 24 and 28, police believe.

For more detailed information on this theft, please visit Art Knowledge News.

Once the apartment’s security system had been breached, the artwork itself was essentially defenseless. This is where an art security system such as Art Guard’s new second-generation RF transmitters can add a vital second level of defense.

Each piece of art is protected by a sensor that will instantly notify authorities on or off premises when it the artwork is tampered with.  Art Guard can be integrated in a variety of central systems, or used as a plug-and-play system that is particularly effective in private homes. When other security measures are turned off during the daytime, Art Guard is still on, working around the clock. The system offers telephone and computer communication and complete compatibility with the full range of GE security sensors. It is user installed, highly affordable and easily expanded.

Individual works of art are irreplaceable. Fortunately they can now be protected at a fraction of their value.

Few people think of restaurants as targets for art theft. This recent press note caught our eye.

Noted Pleasanton (CA) artist Charlotte Severin said yesterday that three of her
five original paintings were stolen from the front lobby of the Pleasanton
Hotel restaurant Dec. 30. She estimated the value of the three paintings at
$2,000. The theft, which Severin noticed when she went to the hotel for a New Year’s
Eve dinner, apparently took place during a late night party the night before.
Severin said two of her paintings were left untouched on the walls near the
restaurant’s bar, but the three that were taken were hanging on both sides
of the front lobby walls, where they’ve been hanging on a “loan” basis for
six months.

We don’t see many of these. A theft of artwork from a restaurant may make it to a small town newspaper, but rarely, and rarely beyond that. After all, the works are usually by local artists. Does that mean they’re not worth protecting? Doubt it. All three paintings were of a convenient size for slipping into an overcoat.

Restaurants are no different than museums or galleries or anywhere else that art is hung – except there are no guards, no cameras, no motion detectors and a highly distracted staff whose job it is to make you comfortable and serve you food.

Be aware of where your works hang and secure them somehow. Art Guard is one solution.

There has been more than the usual number of articles about church theft in the past few years. This leads us to believe that theft of religious artifacts around the world is up considerably, because, like all art theft, what is reported is a fraction of what occurs. This may be particularly true because of the perceptual differences of religious art and artifacts. The relationship a worshiper has to a piece is more spiritual than esthetic. That distinguishes it in several ways from artwork the public has access to in museums or galleries. First, its appeal to the viewer is the intimacy one has with the work in its religious context. Placing it behind glass or roping it off has a tendency to underline the monetary value of the work, diluting the religious experience. As much as a monetary value may not be placed on it by the religious institution, that doesn’t remove its sale value to a thief. There is still a very active market and it can still be sold.  Second, historical conservation restrictions in older buildings can prevent the installation of more sophisticated security equipment in the stone, brick or wood-panel construction that was used at that time. The configuration of the architecture may also have produced isolated rooms and hallways, complicating security efforts even further. Lastly, by not operating as a space that displays art as its function, the safeguards afforded art in galleries and museums, is simply not there. There are no security personnel present to view activity and to act as a deterrent. In a sense, the grab-and-run theft that accounts for the majority of art loss could not be easier.

Through conversations with church officials, we have learned that there is rarely a budget for security and almost never a program in place to train personnel in what to look for in the comings and goings of the public. We suggest churches look more carefully at simple measures. Securing pieces to the wall permanently may be necessary if other measures are not taken. Posting someone near the entrance, a volunteer if necessary, provides a deterrent if that person appears to be alert to what people are carrying or concealing.

Of the products on the market, short of expensive sensing and tracking systems and cameras, there are few that provide adequate protection and are affordable. Inexpensive off-the-shelf products designed mostly for home protection can sometimes be modified to allow attachment to a piece of art, but it is a modified application. The only product on the market that is specifically designed to protect hanging art and can fit any budget is Art Guard. The battery operated alarm device can be adapted to most methods of hanging, and any tampering or attempt at theft is met with an alarm loud enough to be heard even in the discreet reaches of a stone building.

In the cultural heritage of any country, its religious art ranks very high. Theft can be reduced if a few small measures are taken.  But, like many galleries and insitutions that are in denial about their vulnerability, a theft may have to occur before any action is taken.

Crime and art appear to be becoming ever-closer bedfellows in our contemporary world. You only have to look at sky-rocketing values to understand why. Prices soar as markets expand, as investors from Russia and India and the Far East all compete.

These are the sort of audacious heists that get lots of attention because, involving world-famous names, they acquire a patina of glamour. But there are thousands of robberies that go all but unreported.

The art world is a rarefied place. Discretion is prized. Dealers prefer not to discuss client lists. Collectors can be very secretive. On top of that, art works are usually whisked out of the country a few days after being stolen. Often they will not emerge again for years. When they do they may well be in the hands of a bona fide person. Investigators will have to pick their way backwards through an often impenetrable succession of contacts. Besides, criminals are quick to benefit from different jurisdictions. Each country has a different statute of limitations for theft. In the Netherlands the thief becomes the owner after 21 years. In Italy the art work is yours if you buy it at public auction.

Art theft is frequently connected with the crimes with which it competes for police attention. It is used as a surety for loans or as currency to be exchanged for a fraction of its legitimate value for drugs, guns or other contraband. Criminals in Dublin, for instance, pulling off a spectacular heist in a country estate, corralled Rubens, Vermeer and Goya into providing venture capital for a drug-dealing ring. In Buenos Aires at the time of the Falklands conflict, Cézanne helped a brutal dictatorship to pull off an illicit arms deal.

What’s the answer? “If everybody in the art trade searched or insisted that the seller had searched the Art Loss Register, it would become impossible to sell unique items of stolen art,” says Julian Radcliffe, the chairman of the register. “That is what happens with stolen vehicles database. That’s why 70 per cent of stolen vehicles are recovered. Only 1 per cent of stolen art works are found.”

Until this sort of checking becomes an international legal standard, some of our loveliest and most beautiful creations will continue to serve our ugliest schemes.

Excerpted form an article by Rachel Campbell-Johnston