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Lost Art: The Stories of Missing Masterpieces Audible Audiobook – Original recording

Imagine a Museum of Lost Art. If this imaginary museum contained just the artwork we knew was lost— whether from theft, purposeful destruction, vandalism, war, or the forces of nature—it would still contain more masterpieces than those in all the world’s current museums combined. Imagine that!

In Lost Art: The Stories of Missing Masterpieces, art historian Noah Charney guides you through just such an imaginary museum. In 12 fascinating lectures accompanied by stunning graphics, you will hear the stories behind the theft and/or destruction of some of the world’s most famous pieces of art. From the 21st-century Taliban’s iconoclastic destruction of the 500-year-old Buddha Statues at Bamiyan to the earthquake that felled the Colossus of Rhodes in 226 BCE, no one knows how many great works of art have been destroyed or lost throughout history. Only very few have ever resurfaced.

In this course you will learn about dozens of pieces of art whose whereabout are completely unknown at this time, including:

Paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The biggest art heist in modern history occurred in Boston on March 18, 1990, when 13 paintings were stolen from the Gardner Museum. The FBI values the works by Vermeer and Manet, among others, at $500 million. Some believe the mafia was involved. The museum is still asking the public for leads.

Nativity by Caravaggio. One of the most notorious and long-running unsolved thefts in 1969, this Caravaggio painting was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily, and it has continued to appear on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Art list since. Current thinking is that the Sicilian mafia was behind the theft and still has possession of it.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were noted for their architecture, engineering, and the beauty of the plants themselves. The only problem is that no one can find them, not even a reliable trace. Were they simply a matter of fantasy?

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

• Listening Length 5 hours and 59 minutes
• Author Noah Charney, see all
• Narrator Noah Charney
• Audible release date August 11, 2023
• Language English
• Publisher The Great Courses
• ASIN B0CDQQ6FVB
• Version Original recording
• Program Type Audiobook
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Lost art: The hunt for vanished masterpieces

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The auctioneer’s hammer falls, the art fair closes, the gallery exhibition is over, the excited babble about the latest megaprices subsides: but what happens next? Where does the work go? A few pieces, increasingly few, find their way on to the walls of public museums. Most go off to live with their new owners under conditions of considerable secrecy. And, these days, an increasing number of important pieces go straight into storage.

That may be a reprehensible trend but at least the work will be safe, and there will be some record of where it is. For one of the oddest things about a culture that purports to care so much about art is that the art seems strangely easy to lose. With no register of ownership, important works can apparently just evaporate into thin air.

Art history is full of examples of missing wonders, each one an El Dorado for devotees of the artists. Frida Kahlo’s largest known work, “La Mesa Herida” (1940), went Awol in 1955, the year after the artist’s death. She had apparently made a gift of the work to the USSR some time earlier, and at Diego Rivera’s request it was later exhibited in a show of Mexican painting at Warsaw’s Zacheta National Gallery of Art. After that, it was never seen again.

Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr Gachet” (1890), which was sold to Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito in 1990 for a then-astronomical $82.5m — the price, when adjusted for inflation, held the record for the most expensive work ever sold at auction for more than two decades — is also missing in action. As is Renoir’s “Bal du moulin de la Galette” (1876), which he purchased the very next day: apparently used as collateral for business loans, then sold on, it is rumoured to be in a private Swiss collection, but there has been no trace of it since 1990. Saito-san declared that he wanted the Van Gogh painting cremated with him when he died: perhaps he did so, as it has not been seen since his death in 1996.

Owners have a legal right to destroy the work they purchase. But not, in most people’s eyes, a moral right. Clementine Churchill’s destruction of Graham Sutherland’s 1954 portrait of Winston (its subject hated it) still rouses strong feelings; and as we are busy celebrating the Rockefellers as great collectors there is little mention of the fact that they had a magnificent 1934 fresco by Diego Rivera chipped off the walls at Rockefeller Center in New York. Its politics were too radical, they claimed: one can only think that, in commissioning Rivera in the first place, they might have known what they were getting into.

And the destruction by the Taliban and Isis of irreplaceable archaeology and art in the areas under their control evokes almost universal outrage.

Artists sometimes do it too: Botticelli, under the spell of the rampaging fanatic Savonarola in 1497, dragged some of his own works to the pyre in the original Bonfire of the Vanities. “Primavera” and “The Birth of Venus” were, wonderfully, safe elsewhere during this moment of madness, but who knows what was lost?

These cases and more are examined in Noah Charney’s fascinating but often sobering The Museum of Lost Art (Phaidon). Such a museum, as Charney imagines it, would “contain more masterpieces than all the world’s existing museums combined”. This might seem a wild claim until we read such statistics as that lost works by Caravaggio alone number between eight and 115.

Thefts, too, often end in sad stalemate: thieves may be caught or ransoms successfully negotiated, and the works salvaged, but several famous cases remind us that it is not always so. In 1990, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum suffered a mysterious burglary, when thieves made off with treasures including a Rembrandt, a Manet and a Vermeer — the latter a particularly sore loss, since there are so few extant works by the artist. Despite sleuthing, a proffered reward and a flurry of press, the whereabouts of these pictures is still unknown. We just have to hope that the Vermeer is out there somewhere, still intact.

Lost or destroyed works by Caravaggio alone number somewhere between eight and 115

Charney divides his web of intriguing anecdotes into sections such as “Theft”, “War”, “Accident”, “Act of God” and more. Some case histories are uplifting: the rediscovery in the 1930s, for instance, of the glittering mosaics of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia (at least those Islamic conquerors preferred covering them over to wholesale destruction).

Heartening too are the ways in which technology is now harnessed to traditional curatorial expertise to rediscover and reappraise works that have led a hard life: damaged, badly cleaned, overpainted or whatever. A recent famous case was of course Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi” , “lost” for centuries because it had been so thickly overpainted.

Detective work, in the arts, especially in the Old Master field, is a keen sport these days, with professional connoisseurs perpetually on the hunt for “sleepers”, or works whose real identity and quality have been obscured. Questing for lost works can consume lifetimes, or take official form — as when the government of China set out to find the magnificent bronze animal heads from the zodiac water clock of Beijing’s Old Summer Palace, stolen during the Opium Wars in 1860. The rat and the rabbit turned up in the collection of Yves St Laurent, and were bought (after some detours) by Christie’s owner François Pinault, and gifted back to China. But if anyone spots a dog, a snake, a dragon or a sheep or a rooster . . . 

The reasons why art is lost are not always nefarious, as Charney makes clear. Lack of care, changes in taste or morality, accident, poor technique, jealous spouses, sheer ignorance . . . the circumstances are many. But as another trove of works leaves the booths of Art Basel, those who advocate a register of ownership for valuable works will be interested in this book.

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Art Crime: How Masterpieces are Stolen and Recovered

Join one of the most famous art detectives in the world to hear tales from the trenches of his long career solving art crimes with the FBI.

• Firsthand accounts: A legendary FBI art detective will share gripping stories from his career, giving you a real-world perspective on the challenges and triumphs of art crime investigations.
• Notorious heists & daring recoveries : Explore infamous art thefts that captured headlines, and delve into the intricate operations that brought these stolen treasures back home.
• In-depth case studies : Go beyond the headlines with detailed analyses of specific recoveries. You'll examine the strategies employed to locate Rembrandts, Renoirs, and even an awe-inspiring piece of ancient Peruvian history.
• Understanding the why and how : The course will explore the motivations behind art theft and the methods used by criminals. You'll gain insights into how law enforcement disrupts these operations and recovers lost works.
• Art Crime and the FBI: How Masterpieces are Stolen and Recovered
• Frauds, Forgeries, and Fakes
• Documents, Books and Recovering a Lost Nazi Diary
• Looting and Destruction of the World’s Ancient Treasures

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Work that has been lost or damaged as a consequence of student negligence is not eligible for special consideration.

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8 Lost Masterpieces of Art

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: June 1, 2023 | Original: August 6, 2013

1. The Colossus of Rhodes

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, this massive bronze statue of the sun god Helios towered over the Greek city of Rhodes for most of the 3rd century B.C. The behemoth stood 110 feet tall, and reportedly took the sculptor Chares of Lindos a full 12 years to complete. But while the Colossus surely proved an incredible sight for visitors to the city’s bustling harbor, it stood for only 56 years before toppling in a 226 B.C. earthquake. The once mighty statue then lay in ruins for another several centuries before Arab merchants sold off its remains for scrap. No drawings of the Colossus of Rhodes survive today, but ancient sources note that Helios was depicted standing with a torch held in his outstretched hand. These descriptions later served as an inspiration for Frederic Bartholdi’s design of the Statue of Liberty.

2. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Medusa Shield”

Several of Leonardo da Vinci’s works have been lost to time, but the “Medusa Shield” is perhaps the most mysterious. Painted when the Italian master was in his youth, this early work supposedly took the form of a shield emblazoned with a creature inspired by the snake-haired Greek monster Medusa. According to a 1550 account by art historian Giorgio Vasari, the painting was so realistic that it initially frightened Leonardo’s father, who considered it a macabre masterpiece and secretly sold it to a group of Florentine merchants. The shield has long since vanished, and some modern experts now argue that Vasari’s account may have been little more than a myth.

3. Gustave Courbet’s “The Stone Breakers”

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, 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.

4. Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads”

Diego Rivera painted many populist murals and frescoes, but his most famous work might be the one that no longer exists. In 1932, the artist was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller to create a mural for the walls of New York’s Rockefeller Center. Given the theme of “Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future,” Rivera responded with a revolutionary work that referenced scientific progress, civil rights and the plight of the working class. An ardent leftist, he also included a depiction of the communist leader Vladimir Lenin—a move that offended the sensibilities of his wealthy patrons. When Rivera refused to remove Lenin from his mural, the Rockefellers had the work covered over with canvas frames and then later destroyed. Rivera would go on to paint another version of his Rockefeller mural—this time titled “Man, Controller of the Universe”—in Mexico City.

5. Sutherland’s “Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill”

In 1954, members of the British Parliament commissioned a portrait by the artist Graham Sutherland and presented it to Winston Churchill as an 80th birthday gift. While he claimed to be honored by the gesture, Churchill was no fan of Sutherland’s realist rendering, which he thought captured him in an unflattering pose. In fact, the prime minister so loathed the portrait that he considered not attending the presentation ceremony, and even wrote Sutherland a letter personally expressing his disappointment. Churchill and his wife went on to decline all requests to publicly exhibit the painting, and the work effectively disappeared from public view for several years. Upon her death in 1977, it was finally revealed that Lady Churchill had personally smashed and burned the hated portrait less than a year after its presentation.

6. 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 archeologists unearthed a third, previously undiscovered Buddha statue near the ruins.

7. Caravaggio’s “Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence”

Ever since its theft in a 1969 robbery, Caravaggio’s nativity scene has been regarded as one of the art world’s most notorious stolen paintings. The masterwork has not been seen since it was lifted from a chapel in Palermo, Italy, though evidence indicates the Sicilian Mafia may have played a role in the heist. In 1996, a mob informant testified that he and several other men had stolen the painting for a private buyer, only to accidentally destroy it while cutting the canvas from its frame. More than a decade later, another former mafioso claimed the painting had been hidden in a barn for safekeeping, but was irreparably damaged by rats and hogs before being burned. The fate of the nativity ultimately remains a mystery, but if it still exists, the painting would now be worth as much as $20 million.

8. The Amber Room

Created by sculptor Andreas Schlüter and master amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram, this breathtaking chamber took the form of 180 square feet of shimmering amber panels decorated with gold leaf and mosaics of precious stones. The room was first constructed in 1701, and was later gifted to Peter the Great to help cement an alliance between Prussia and Russia. Often called the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the ornate chamber was considered a masterpiece of Baroque art and was worth over $140 million in today’s dollars.

The Amber Room spent 225 years as a Russian national treasure before being captured by the Germans in their invasion of Russia during World War II. The Nazis then disassembled the chamber and took it to Königsberg, Germany, where it disappeared near the end of the war. Most historians believe it was destroyed in a 1944 Allied bombing run, but there is also evidence suggesting the room was packed up and removed from the city. From there, some theories suggest, it might have been loaded onto a ship that sunk in the Baltic Sea or simply secreted away in a vault or bunker. The original room has never been found, but a replica of the chamber was later built and installed at a museum near St. Petersburg.

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About the Lost Art Database

The Lost Art Database is maintained by the German Lost Art Foundation. It documents cultural property that was either demonstrably seized from their owners between 1933 and 1945 as a result of Nazi persecution, or for which such a seizure cannot be ruled out ("Nazi-looted art/cultural property").

In addition, the Lost Art Database lists cultural property seized, relocated or removed as a result of the Second World War (“wartime losses”).

• German Lost Art Foundation

Search Requests and Found-Object Reports

The Search Requests section lists cultural objects that were lost by private individuals and institutions or public institutions as a result of National Socialist dictatorship or in the course of the Second World War. Their locations are usually unknown, but the search list also includes objects whose locations, e.g. in Russia, are known.

The Found-Object Reports section lists artefacts that are known to have been seized or relocated due to Nazi persecution or as a result of the Second World War. Furthermore, reports on cultural property are published here, for which an uncertain or incomplete provenance indicates a possibly unlawful seizure or a war-related relocation.

In the case of Found-Object Reports, it is not always possible to make a clear assignment to a specific context of loss, as experience has shown that today's owners often do not know the details of the provenance of the artefacts in their possession.

Historical contexts of injustice

Between 1933 and 1945, millions of cultural objects were relocated, confiscated and looted: Persecutees of the Nazi tyranny became victims of state-organized cultural property looting in the form of "Aryanizations," expropriations, forced sales, or forced donations.

At the end of the war, the activities of the Soviet trophy commissions, the thefts of individual military personnel of the Allied forces, or territorial shifts led to the fact that cultural property that had been removed from storage were no longer returned to their original location and were looted, transferred, or relocated as "war trophy." In the Soviet Union in particular, they were intended to serve as compensation for war damage and losses suffered.

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Archiv,  303.3/M3, F 743

BArch, B 323 Bild-0311-010

Legal and ethical foundations

The legal foundations for the restitution of cultural property expropriated as a result of Nazi persecution after the Second World War were the Additional Federal Compensation Act of 1953, the Federal Compensation Act (BEG) of 1956 and the Federal Restitution Act (BRüG) of 1957. However, they did not come close to reversing the property transfers. The deadlines for filing claims have since expired.

In 1998, the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art were adopted at the international level. In 1999, Germany followed this historical and moral commitment and issued the Joint Declaration . Point III of the Joint Declaration calls for a public document listing lost and found objects that have been identified by public institutions as or are suspected to be Nazi-looted cultural property. Against this background, the Lost Art Database was put online in April 2000 and Guidelines were prepared by the German Federal Government, the Länder and the national associations of local authorities in 2001.

The starting point for the repatriation of cultural property displaced by war is international law, and in particular the Hague Convention of 1907: Among other things, it prohibits looting (Art. 47 HLKO), protects private property, and prohibits the confiscation, destruction, or damage of works of art (Art. 56 HLKO).

In order to document losses of cultural property from the years 1933 to 1945 and to create a basis for their repatriation, ten German Länder founded the "Koordinierungsstelle der Länder für die Rückführung von Kulturgütern [Coordination Office of the German Federal States for the Repatriation of Cultural Property]" in Bremen in 1994. Since 1998, all 16 Länder and, from 2001, the Federal Government, have participated in the Coordination Office, which was given its headquarters in Magdeburg (Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg) and merged into the German Lost Art Foundation in 2015.

BArch, B 323 Bild-0311-063

Sensitive language

Titles and descriptions of objects in the Lost Art Database may contain discriminatory terms that reflect historical discourses and power relations. They go back to titles given by artists, manufacturers or authors, or have been handed down through historical inventories, inscriptions, catalogs, etc. We are aware that the use of these terms reproduces discriminatory language. However, in order to ensure that works remain traceable under their historical titles, we have decided to retain these terms. Documentation of historical work titles is essential for provenance research.

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