Today’s Guardian reports that a painting of Magritte’s wife Olympia has been stolen.
Although it will be good for Magritte’s brand, I groaned when I read the story and read it with extra attention as I had just read Stealing The Scream by Edward Dolnick about the theft of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting.
I stumbled on Dolnick’s book by chance in the National Gallery of Ireland shop in Dublin the other day, at the opening of a Munch exhibition, and thought it looked worth a read. It won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime Book. (Whatever happened to True Crime?)
The Scream
It’s a delightful book, as good as any detective yarn, but entirely true.
The book begins and ends with thefts of works by Munch. Most of it is about the 1994 theft and the story of its recovery weaves in the career exploits of Charley Hill, the detective who recovered it.
His last coup was recovering the Vermeer of a Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid, now in the National Gallery of Ireland.
The book ends on a satisfying note with the painting recovered.
Then, like one of those free first chapters of a sequel (which I ordinarily refuse to read), the afterword describes a 2004 theft of The Scream, and it comes as a shock. Afterwards the museum closes for three weeks
to install alarms, among other things.
Incredible, but true.
The story of art crime that Dolnick tells is almost funny, so inept are the security and insurance arrangements. His account of the great works that are missing is tantalising.
I’ve added these blogs to my reading list: Art hostage and Stolen Vermeer and will read them from the beginning when I have time.
The National Gallery shop in Dublin had a curious jack-in-the-box character for sale resembling the screamer, but he was permanently out of the box and not foldable back in. Terrible marketing! A pop-up with a scream like a banshee would surely be a best seller. I mean, why not do tat properly?
Gallery restaurant
The shop is in an interesting extension of the gallery, the Millennium Wing, part of which converts some outdoor space to indoors (see the restaurant on the right). It’s not on the same scale or as impressive as that at the British Museum in London, but it’s well done.
I’ve added the following to my read someday list:
Stealing History by Roger Atwood
The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick
The Irish Game by Matthew Hart
Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt and Julian Radcliffe
The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas
Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World by Sharon Waxman
They represent a genre I’d overlooked. The idea of long lost things coming to light, whether fossils or species believed extinct or works of art has an instinctive appeal.
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