Displaying items by tag: Stolen

A Spanish court sentenced a man on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for crimes including the theft of a priceless medieval document considered the first guidebook to Spain's Saint James pilgrimage trail.

Police recovered the unique 12th-century manuscript in July 2012, a year after it was found to have gone missing from a safe in the famous cathedral of the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.

Judges in a court in the nearby city of La Coruna said in a written ruling that they "consider it proven" that an electrician who worked for years at the cathedral, Manuel Fernandez Castineiras, stole the manuscript.

An employee at Russia's Hermitage Museum was arrested for stealing books and documents, some centuries-old, from the institution's celebrated collection and then trying to sell them to antique dealers, officials said Monday.

The man, who worked in the library of the Saint Petersburg museum, was taken into custody Friday in connection with a probe launched after items were found missing during an inspection last month, Russia's secret service FSB said in a statement.

A man who tried to sell stolen paintings worth a fortune, including works by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera, was sentenced Friday to more than four years in state prison.

Raul Espinoza pleaded no contest to one count of receiving property stolen in 2008 from the Encino home of an elderly couple, Los Angeles prosecutors said.

The whereabouts of a dozen modern paintings from the home of Anton and Susan Roland remained a mystery for more than six years until a Los Angeles police detective got a tip in September that someone in Europe was trying to broker a deal to sell the art.

Almost two dozen works of art, including a Robert Ballagh piece, are still missing from Leinster House almost three years after they were first reported as lost, the "Sunday Independent" can reveal.

There are concerns that some may have been stolen. It is feared that others may have been moved amid the upheaval within Leinster House following the largest ever changeover of TDs following the 2011 General Election.

An official investigation as to the status of the missing artworks remains ongoing, according to the Office of Public Works (OPW), which has responsibility for managing the collection of more than 720 works of art.

Thieves have breached stringent security at Christie's London flagship headquarters to pull off a heist valued at up to a million pounds. The stolen items, thought to be mostly jewelery and small antiques, included works by the Russian jewelers Fabergé.

Police have been investigating the theft for two weeks and even though they have CCTV footage, have failed to identify any of the suspects, who may be of an Eastern European background.

Nine works of art that were stolen six years ago in one of the largest art heists in L.A. history have been recovered by investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

After an undercover operation at a West Los Angeles hotel in October, federal authorities detained Raul Espinoza, 45, who tried to sell the paintings -- which are valued at $10 million -- for $700,000 cash.

The nine works recovered were among the dozen stolen from an Encino home on the morning of Aug. 24, 2008.

A long-lost painting by the Spanish Baroque artist Sebastián de Llanos Valdés, which was missing for over 70 years, has been discovered in the UK, after an unidentified individual tried to consign "Penitent Maria Magdalena" to Christie's, according to a DPA report. However, the Staatliche Museum Schwerin, which owns the painting, had previously entered the artwork into Germany's centralized "Lost Art" database for stolen artworks. Since the attempted sale the museum and auction house were able to negotiate the work's return; with the individual who found and consigned the Valdés reportedly being offered a reward by way of compensation.

The artist was born in Seville, and was a pupil of Francisco Herrera the Elder, he worked chiefly for private patrons. In 1660, the artist actively supported Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in founding the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), afterwards making frequent donations of oil and other materials for the students' use.

An Italian pensioner who unknowingly bought a stolen Gauguin for a pittance has been allowed to keep it after it was valued at $50 million.

The man, who has requested anonymity out of fear the painting could attract thieves, acquired the work along with another piece at an art sale in Turin in 1975.

The auctioneers told him they were worthless "rubbish," but they were in fact an 1889 Gauguin entitled "Fruits on a Table" or "Still Life with a Small Dog," and a work by Pierre Bonnard entitled "Woman with Two Armchairs," now thought to be worth $850,000.

The Andy Warhol Foundation's recent lawsuit to block the $20 million sale of an allegedly stolen Elizabeth Taylor portrait has sent shockwaves through the Pop-Art icon's family.

Though the foundation says their namesake's former bodyguard, Agusto Bugarin, stole "Liz" and then waited decades to sell it as potential challengers died off, two of Warhol's nephews came to Bugarin's defense in exclusive interviews with Courthouse News.

Like the rest of Andy's family, James and George Warhola have kept their Slovakian surname intact. Unlike their cousin, Donald Warhola, however, James and George have no association with the foundation. Four years ago, Donald took over for his late father, John, as trustee of an arts organization created in Warhol's will.