If You Live In Britain, Better Hide That Picasso

Dear John:
Thanks for the post - your information about Russia adds another dimension to mine. I suspect that museums do not disclose thefts, unless they have to, because they don't want to admit to holes in their security systems. They might entice other thefts.

Any museum people out there care to comment?

Dear Judith,

Thank you for this interesting research. Russia's absence on the list is not surprising since information in this dictatorship is carefully controlled. Police rarely provide information to the public, and what they do provide is highly suspect. Even Russia's ruling group regularly lambasts the country's law-enforcement agencies for corruption and incompetence. So when art is stolen, most people don't bother turning to the police and try private means to solve these problems. This all attests to the utter inability to obtain even the smallest sense of the situation with art theft in Russia.

Most art in Russia is in state museums. Due to the Soviet Union's repression against private property, there are not as many private collections in Russia as in Europe and America.

Certainly the number of private Russian collections has grown significantly in the past 20 years, and they are owned by very wealthy people; people who spend enormously on security. It's unlikely their works will be stolen.

As far as art galleries, art does disappear but I can't remember a gallery officially reporting artworks stolen. They use private means to try to return the stolen art, or they accept the loss and take no action. (art insurance is very uncommon here, by the way.)

State museums are a much different matter. Theft is very common, as witnessed by the constant disappearance of hundreds of artworks from the Hermitage Museum over a ten-year period. After those thefts came to light in summer 2006, the ensuing furor was so great that museum officials in the country agreed never again would they make public the theft of any item from a museum.

By the way, officials cited what they consider is a ``western practice''. One leading museum director told me that ``western museums never make public the thefts from their collections. So why should we?'' If you could shed light on this alleged practice I'd be much obliged.

Sincerely,
John