Art up, art theft up

From the Art Newspaper:

As art prices continue to rise, and the sums paid are publicised, theft has become an increasingly serious problem at arts and antiques fairs. . .

“Thievery at fairs isn’t uncommon at all,” says Steven Pincus of Marsh USA, an insurance company. He believes that the combination of huge crowds and the ready availability of small, valuable objects is driving up the frequency of thefts. Mr Pincus says that he also believes robberies go unrecorded because dealers are reluctant to admit to them.

I wonder if that is so true at the higher end of the market, which is the focus of this brief article. Top dealers tend to have good records and proper insurance, so even if losses aren't publicized, they will show up in insurance industry statistics. It's surely a different story below that top level, however: a surprising number of ordinary dealers are uninsured or underinsured, and many keep very sloppy records indeed. Those who exhibit large numbers of small, relatively inexpensive items may lose a piece here and there without being sure that anything is missing, or being sure about precisely what and when. Not like the really big items that go missing:

Last October at Brian and Anna Haughton’s International Art & Antique Dealers Show in New York, a James I silver gilt cup, valued at $75,000, was stolen from the stand of Manhattan silver dealer S.J. Shrubsole . . .

Jewellery is a favoured target. At the 2004 Paris Biennale, thieves made off with a 47-carat white diamond and a 16-carat blue diamond worth over €11.5 million from Chopard at the Carrousel du Louvre.

Posted by David on February 11, 2006 1:33 PM