While thefts of high profile paintings, such as Emil Nolde’s The Scream or Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, may garner international attention, it is the lesser-known masterpieces that disappear into the ether. Interpol data from March of 2018 showed that the black market for art was worth between $4-$6 billion. Interpol and UNESCO list art theft as the fourth largest black market in the world, after drugs, money laundering and weapons. Stolen art is a much bigger business than I imagined. He had his uncle accuse Caravaggio’s teacher, Cavalier d’Aprino, of owing exorbitant papal taxes so that Caravaggio’s early masterpiece, Boy with a Basket of Fruit, as well as 105 other paintings, could be confiscated and then delivered to Borghese’s palatial home. Back in 1664 Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, lusted after every Caravaggio painting for his collection. Art collectors who hire others to steal art for them is not new. Their villains are mostly greedy art collectors who crave certain paintings to make them feel important. The other six writers portray art heists as serious business, often with dangerous consequences.
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