Goya hijacked

A painting by Spanish master Goya has been stolen while en route across the US, two museums have announced.

The work was stolen near Scranton, Pennsylvania, said a joint statement issued by New York's Guggenheim Museum and Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art.

The 228-year-old work, Children with a Cart, was to be displayed in New York at an exhibition due to open this week.

From the BBC. A few more details in the Guardian:

The operation was meticulously planned and had the benefit of pinpoint accurate intelligence. The van was travelling on a circuitous route through the backwater of Scranton in Pennsylvania, well away from the main interstate highway 80 that led to its destination, New York.

This doesn't smell right. If you are transporting something both delicate and valuable, you don't take roundabout routes. Interstates are faster and straighter, beating up the cargo less and being considerably safer in terms of accident rates, let alone likelihood of ambush. Could this have been an inside job? Or is it standard transport protocol to take routes on which low speeds are OK, on the grounds that high-speed accidents pose the greatest risk?

From what other articles are saying, however, it doesn't sound as if the transport vehicle was stolen or ambushed. From the Toledo Museum press release (.pdf):

A painting by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes from the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art was discovered taken last week while en route from Toledo, Ohio, to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City . . .

"Discovered taken" suggests to me that the truck was left alone at some point, and was then broken into. Which would also suggest that the theft might well not have been the masterly crime so beloved of reporters, but rather the sort of opportunistic highway rest stop break-in familiar to thousands of sadder-but-presumably-wiser antique dealers who thought nothing could happen while they ran inside to get a quick snack and use the toilet.

My bet is that the painting turns up again pretty quickly after the thieves (or whomever they manage to flip it to) discover it to be unsellable, not to mention red hot.

UPDATE:

Spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Stroud Regional Police Department had conflicting information on when the theft occurred.

Special Agent Jerri Williams of the FBI’s Philadelphia office said the theft occurred on Nov. 9.

But, Lt. Brian Kimmins of Stroud Regional said the theft was reported at about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 8. The painting was taken from the Howard Johnson’s on state Route 611, off Interstate 80, he said.

The Associated Press had reported the theft happened in the Scranton area.

Williams and the Toledo museum said the painting was in the care of a professional art transport provider. Neither would release the transport provider’s name, but Williams confirmed the vehicle was temporarily unattended and had been broken into.

Williams said federal agents are looking into the possibility that the vehicle had been followed from Toledo.

From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.

Posted by David on November 15, 2006 9:48 AM