Works of art are a statement of and a commentary on the
time, place and persons who created them and patronized them. They
are the images of the civilization gone bye and help us to understand history. Although
we may not realize it, art is a cultural statement that remains to inform and
educate future generations of how life once was. This is what makes certain
pieces of art more poignant and famous than others, when they come to symbolize
a generation or period of time.
Though priceless and invaluable there have been occasions in
history when they were not shown the respect they deserved and they were
pillaged, plundered, stolen and destroyed. Thus either unknowingly or worse
still, knowingly and with a vengeance of intolerance they have been destroyed
and left gaping holes in the story of our civilization. So whether it was
because of the World Wars or it was the plunder of Muslim fundamentalists of
ISIS or Taliban, many precious works of art were lost forever. Accidents, fire,
negligence and botched up restoration efforts too have contributed to the
tragic loss of priceless artworks.
The wars have had a very detrimental impact on culture and civilization
and art which remains an embodiment of both has suffered most and many epics
have been lost forever. The invading armies were either ignorant of their true
value or were so afraid of their potential to revive a culture that they
purposely destroyed them.
When properly taken care of, works of art can
persist through millenniums that tell the stories of the times passed to future
generations. To preserve cultural heritage from getting destroyed, art
galleries and museums have installed a set of rules designed to protect the
artworks from thieves, vandals, and accidents. Artworks are often protected by
safety ropes that keep the visitors at a reasonable distance. Some pieces are
placed inside bulletproof glass boxes.
But, since art venues are trying to keep the sense of accessibility, many works are showcased without these protective items. Instead, they are guarded by a series of guidelines that the visitors must obey. For instance, viewers are often asked to leave their belongings (such as briefcases and umbrellas) at the front desk. Since children are prone to accidents of all kinds, museums demand that they must be accompanied by adults. Food and drinks are not allowed and touching the pieces is strictly forbidden.
There's a reason why museums and galleries ask people not to touch works on display. Human skin carries natural oils and acids that are harmful to artworks. A single touch can initiate permanent changes, darken the paint or corrode metal. But despite these rules, accidents happen and artworks get shattered, punched through or completely destroyed.
But, since art venues are trying to keep the sense of accessibility, many works are showcased without these protective items. Instead, they are guarded by a series of guidelines that the visitors must obey. For instance, viewers are often asked to leave their belongings (such as briefcases and umbrellas) at the front desk. Since children are prone to accidents of all kinds, museums demand that they must be accompanied by adults. Food and drinks are not allowed and touching the pieces is strictly forbidden.
There's a reason why museums and galleries ask people not to touch works on display. Human skin carries natural oils and acids that are harmful to artworks. A single touch can initiate permanent changes, darken the paint or corrode metal. But despite these rules, accidents happen and artworks get shattered, punched through or completely destroyed.
In a 5 part series I will be presenting 50 priceless and
invaluable works of art which we will never be able to see again
because they have been lost forever and this is the second series of 10
such masterpieces:
11. Poppy Flowers - Vincent Van Gogh
Painted by Vincent Van Gogh, Poppy Flowers (also known as Vase
and Flowers) was stolen from the Mohammud Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo in
August 2010. The painting depicts yellow and red poppy flowers against a dark
background and is small in size, measuring just 65 x 54 centimeters. It is
believed that Van Gogh painted this work three years before his suicide and
that it was created out of Van Gogh’s admiration for Adolphe Montecelli.
With an estimated value of $50 million, it is no surprise that
the painting was targeted by thieves. The robbery in 2010 wasn’t the first time
the painting had been snatched; it was stolen from the same museum in June of
1977. Following an extensive search operation, it was found ten years later in
Kuwait. A few hours after the second theft in 2010, Egyptian officials and
police believed that they had discovered the painting at the Cairo
International Airport when two suspects attempted to board a plane to Italy.
However, this lead proved to be false, and the painting’s location is still
unknown.
12. Le pigeon aux petits pois - Pablo
Picasso
Painted in 1911, Pablo Picasso’s Le Pigeon aux Petits Pois (The
Pigeon with Green Peas) became the target for a large art robbery in May of
2010. Swiped alongside four other masterpieces, Picasso’s painting was stolen
from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. All five works have an
estimated value of €100 million.
What was unusual about this theft was that it was carried out by
one person instead of a gang of thieves, and all that was found at the crime
scene was a broken padlock and a single smashed window. The paintings
themselves were also removed from their frames rather than being cut. In 2011,
a man who stated that he had thrown the painting into a rubbish container
following the theft was convicted of the robbery. However, the credibility of
this story is doubtful, and the painting is still lost.
13. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee - Rembrandt van Rijn
Another painting snatched in the same robbery as Joannas
Vermeer's 'The Concert' was 'The Storm of the Sea of Galilee' by the Dutch
golden age painter, Rembrandt van Rijn. This painting is believed to be
Rembrandt’s only seascape. It depicts Jesus and the miracle of calming the Sea
of Galilee from the Gospel of Mark. Painted in 1633, the painting is also
amongst the most valuable missing artworks in the world.
It was previously in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
Boston but was stolen in March 18, 1990 and remains missing. The thieves came
disguised as police officers.There have been recent developments related to the
theft. In 2013, the FBI claimed that they knew the culprits of the crime and
that the theft was carried out by a gang rather than one individual. However,
there have been no other announcements about the case since then. There is a $5
million reward for information in relation to the robbery. The museum still
displays the empty frames of the stolen paintings.
14. Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence - Caravaggio
One of the most prolific artists in history,
Caravaggio's works are among the most valuable in the world, and as a result,
there have been a number of attempts by thieves to steal them. One successful
theft occurred in 1969 when The Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence
(also known as The Adoration) was taken from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in
Palermo, Sicily. The painting hung above the altar and was almost six square
meters in size. The thief must have removed the painting from its frame due to
its size. The Oratory was also pillaged of other artworks, precious woods and
benches inlaid with mother of pearl. The location of the Caravaggio is still
unknown to this day. It is believed that the local Sicilian Mafia carried out
the theft, but this is just speculation. It is also rumored that the painting
is hidden abroad or that it was destroyed during the theft or during the 1980
earthquake
Michelangelo Meris da Cparavaggio (1571 - 1610) was an
Italian painter active in Rome most if his active artistic career but moved to
Naples, Malta and Sicily later. His paintings combine a realistic observation
of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of
lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque paintings.
15. The Portrait of a Young Man - Raphael
Snatched by the Nazis in Poland, the Portrait of a
Young Man is believed to have been created by Raphael around 1513. It is often
cited as one of the most important missing paintings since World War II. While
the subject matter is disputed, it is generally regarded to be a self-portrait
of Raphael, as the facial features are similar to those depicted in his
self-portrait in the fresco 'The School of Athens'. The portrait shows a
confident and well-dressed young man, depicted in an early Mannerist style. In
1939, the family patriarch Prince Augustyn Józef Czartoryski rescued a number
of pieces from the Czartoryski Museum, including Portrait of a Young Man.
Despite being hidden, the collection was discovered by the Gestapo. The
portrait was sent to Berlin and then Dresden to become part of the Führer’s
Collection at Linz. The last sighting of the painting was in Kraków when it was
placed in Wawel Castle. Its current location is still unknown. In 2012, a false
report about the painting’s rediscovery was published but was soon ascertained
to be a hoax.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an
Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for
its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the
Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. His other famous works are Transfiguratio,
La fornarina, The Marriage of the Virgin and Madonna del Prato.
16. Charing Cross Bridge - Claude Monet
Between 1899 and 1904, Impressionist Claude Monet painted his
famous series of Charing Cross Bridge in London, depicting the bridge over
various times of the day and from different views. One of these paintings was
stolen from Rotterdam as part of the Kunsthal Museum theft in October 2012.
Following the theft, a group of Romanian thieves were convicted of the crime.
One of the burglars claimed that the Monet painting, as well as a few other
artworks that were stolen, was burned in his mother’s stove in order to hide
any evidence of the theft. Following a search of the stove, traces of pigment
were found, but there was not enough solid evidence to prove his claim. The
painting is still listed as missing, and the investigation continues.
The Charing Cross Bridge paintings are scattered in
collections all around the world. An unfinished canvas held by the Indianapolis
Museum of Art. Other versions are at the Art Institute of Chicago, the
Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard Museum of
Fine Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in
Madrid.
During the years between 1899 and 1905, Monet
traveled to London to capture its sights from the fifth-floor balcony of the
Savoy Hotel. Monet was captivated by the London fog made markedly worse by the
heavy pollution of the Industrial revolution. He painted the Houses of
Parliament, Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge over and over again to
reflect how the architecture changed with season and time of day.
17. Reading Girl in White and Yellow - Henri Matisse
Part of the same Rotterdam art heist in which Monet's
Charing Cross Bridge was stolen was Reading Girl in White and Yellow by Frennch
artist Henri Matisse. Painted in 1919, the painting depicts a woman deep in
thought reading a book, sitting next to a table decorated with flowers. The
theft of this artwork and the others stolen in the robbery was one of the
biggest in The Netherlands in over a decade. The burglars broke into the museum
through an emergency exit and swiped a number of works before fleeing, all
within two minutes. The mother of one of the thieves also claims that she was
frightened following her son’s arrest, and so she buried the stolen artworks in
an abandoned house and a cemetery in the village of Caracliu. She later dug up
the paintings and burned them in her stove. The Matisse painting and the other
stolen works formed part of the Triton Foundation collection.
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was a French artist, known
for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a
draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. He
was a leading figure of Fauvism and, along with Pablo Picasso, one of the most
influential artists of the modern era. In his paintings, sculptures, and works
on paper, Matisse experimented with vivid colors, Pointillist techniques, and
reduced, flat shapes. His other famous works include Blue nudes, Woman with a
hat and the snail.
18. Francis Bacon - Lucian Freud
Missing
since 1988, the portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud was taken from
Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, possibly by a fan of Bacon or a student. The
gallery was full at the time of the theft. Following the robbery, Freud
designed his own wanted poster for the stolen portrait, but this didn’t garner
any responses. The poster depicts a monochrome version of the painting with
‘wanted’ in red as well as a reward. The stolen painting was created over
half a century ago and reveals Freud and Bacon’s close friendship. The portrait
was praised for its intimate nature and tension. At the time of the theft, the
portrait was on loan from the collection at the Tate for a retrospective on the
artist at the Berlin gallery. There has been information regarding the portrait
since the theft.
For a quarter of a century, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon
were the closest of friends. Their lives were characterized by an intense
mutual scrutiny of each other and each other’s work, resulting in some
extraordinary paintings and a deep but volatile relationship.
When they weren’t painting, they spent much of their time
at the Gargoyle Club (and later the Colony Room) in London’s Soho, drinking,
gambling and arguing.
19. The Stone Breakers - Gustave Courbet
Painted
in 1849, this classic example of social realism was hailed for its
unsentimental depiction of poor laborers, one young and one old, removing rocks
from a roadside. Inspired by a chance meeting with two downtrodden workers,
French artist Gustave Courbet deliberately broke with convention by capturing
the men in gritty detail, from their straining muscles to their tattered and
dirty clothing. While it helped launch Courbet’s art career, “The Stone
Breakers” was ultimately doomed to become one of the many cultural casualties
of World War II. In 1945, the painting was destroyed during an Allied bombing
near the city of Dresden, Germany
If we look closely at the painting, painted only one year
after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote their influential pamphlet, The
Communist Manifesto, the artist's concern for the plight of the poor is
evident. Here, two figures labor to break and remove stone from a road that is
being built. In our age of powerful jackhammers and bulldozers, such work is
reserved as punishment perhaps. The man that seems too old and the boy that
seems still too young for such back-breaking labor is meant to be an accurate
account of the abuse and deprivation that was a common feature of mid-century
French rural life.
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led
the Realism movement in ... 'The Painter's Studio', 'The Desperate Man', 'The
Wounded Man', 'Woman with a parrot' and 'A Burial at Ornans'.
20. The Buddhas of Bamiyan
Built
sometime in the 6th century, this legendary pair of stone Buddhas stood for 1,500
years before falling victim to a cultural purge by the Taliban. The 135 and
175-foot-tall carvings were originally fashioned directly out of a sandstone
cliff, and served as Bamiyan’s most spectacular monument during a time when the
city flourished as a Silk Road trading hub. While they weathered more than a
dozen centuries, several attacks by Muslim emperors and even an invasion by
Genghis Kahn, the Buddhas were finally destroyed in March 2001, when the
Taliban and their allies in Al Qaeda gave an order condemning idolatrous
imagery. Ignoring widespread appeals from the international community, the
groups then fired on the statues with antiaircraft guns before blowing them to
rubble with dynamite. While the destruction of the Buddhas was condemned as a
crime against culture, a number of formerly hidden cave drawings and texts have
been discover among the debris, and in 2008 archaeologists unearthed a third,
previously undiscovered Buddha statue near the ruins.
Bamiyan valley is 230 Km north east of Kabul and the
statues were classic example of Gandhar art and an UNESCO world heritage site.
The statues consisted of the male Salsal ("light shines through the
universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"), as
they were called by the locals. The main bodies were hewn directly from the
sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with
stucco. This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted
to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands, and folds of the robes; the
larger one was painted red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.
We will continue with our journey through this tragic world
of priceless works of art that are lost forever in our 3rd of the 5 series
in the next blog
