ABOVE: detail from Titian’s Rest on the Flight Into Egypt, the object of a high-profile art theft that made headlines in 1995, and again in 2002 when it was recovered inside a plastic bag at a bus stop in Richmond. The Guardian says art theft is no laughing matter.

Well, clean your fingernails and straighten up that posture before you read The Guardian’s lemony little item today about the total un-harmlessness of major art theft and fraud. Art theft, they quote Rosalind Wright of London’s Fraud Advisory Panel as saying, “is perpetrated not by opportunist thieves but by organised criminals. There is nothing ‘gentlemanly’ or ‘white-collar’ about it—these are dangerous individuals.” Funny, we’d always pictured art fraudsters as being ascotted little Peter Lorre-types with tweed caps and a fondness for sherry in their tea, which they would drink while daubing a few casual strokes on the Gauguin they’re forging in the breakfast nook before going out to tool around the countryside in the Aston Martin. Well, we are illusioned no more.

The article makes the bold but basically unverifiable claim that 10 to 40 per cent of the paintings sold by major artists are fakes. It also cheerfully abuses the word “dangerous,” citing the fact that pensioners have lost their savings to art sharks; this is certainly a terrible thing to do to someone, but hardly dangerous in the classic sense of the word. The piece also takes a swipe at “the media” for treating art theft as “light entertainment,” never once noting that the Guardian itself was one of the pack in that respect. Today’s article, however, is echoing a particularly acid piece on the subject of art theft published by Bunny Smedley on the “high tory” art and culture online journal Electric Review. Smedley’s essay is guaranteed to provide you with 100 per cent of your daily recommended serving of dudgeon.

The Guardian > Masters Criminals