On the 26th of January 2019, Banksy’s tribute to the Bataclan shooting victims in Paris was stripped from the music venue’s external fire door. Another one of Banksy’s artworks wrongfully taken away by opportunistic thieves, it’s not anything new. But this time it sparked national outrage, as the stencil wasn’t only a political message but also a tribute to the victims and a piece adored by the locals and owners of the venue.Will the thieves gain anything from it? Olivier de Baecque, an expert in artistic rights, says the piece was an homage to the victims in a symbolic place – stripping it from its original location will therefore alter its significance and value. “On the official art market, this work will never be sold, but on the black market it’s another story” deems Guillaume Crait, auctioneer at Crait + Müller.
When it comes to fine arts, there are laws and regulations in place in order to protect stolen goods from being sold officially. There is even a database of stolen art known as the Art Loss Register – stolen art is indicated as such until returned to its rightful owner or place of origin. But private collectors and criminals with a taste for art will not shy away from stealing the art for themselves. In fact, stealing fine art isn’t hard and very little repercussions are seen; Noah Charney, a scholar and author who’s published multiple books on art theft, estimates only “1.5 percent of cases of art theft see the art recovered and the criminal prosecuted”.
The silver-lining here (although it barely is one) is that stolen art is very hard to sell, and even if it is, it won’t turn as much of a profit as it could have on auction. Alice Farren-Bradley, recoveries case manager at the Art Loss Registry, estimates that in the vast majority of cases the stolen art will only be sold for 5 to 10% of its fair market value. It is more likely that thieves who are part of criminal organizations will keep them as trophies for bragging rights, exchange them for weapons & drugs, or use them as a means of extortion towards galleries/auction houses/the original buyer. Farren-Bradley also notes that unless the burglar was a “professional”, it is likely that the art will be damaged and lose its value altogether.
Just a reminder that we’re not even talking about antique, ethnic or religious pieces such as Cambodian Buddha heads or Mayan ceramics, stolen and exchanged since the beginning of international travel. More memorable cases of mass art plunder were executed by the Nazis during WWII (see image below). However, some countries have adopted the 1970 UNESCO convention forbidding the illegal import or export of artifacts – they cannot be sold at auction. Britain still hasn’t adopted this convention, unsettling considering up to 90 percent of the antiquities auctioned in London - one of the world's leading art markets - contained no details of origin (as reported by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in the University of Cambridge)Xavier Bernard
