Stolen artwork is simply difficult to unload. “Nine times out of ten, when individuals commit a robbery like that, it is done by individuals or criminal organisations which have the ability to do a burglary, but they don’t usually have the ability to sell paintings,” says Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s art crime team and author of the memoir Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures. (more…)

A Roy Lichtenstein painting, missing for 42 years has been returned to its owner by Federal authorities.  Barbara Castelli’s late husband, Leo Castelli, had purchased the painting in the 1960s for $750; it is now valued at $4 million. The piece was sent to be cleaned in 1971 and remained there unnoticed until the restorer’s widow said the the employee who had kept track of the painting asked her to find a buyer for him. She found a buyer in Colombia, not knowing it was stolen. When the buyer contacted the Lichtenstein Foundation to authenticate the work, the Foundation contacted Castelli, who alerted the FBI. (more…)