Stolen

THE Hôtel Drouot was rocked to its foundations on December 2 after a massive police swoop ended with 12 people being taken into custody on suspicion of organised theft.

PICTURED here is an artist’s impression of one of a cache of easily identifiable antiques stolen from the Spanish home of two retired British antiques dealers.

A THOMAS Tompion table clock was among the items stolen in a raid on a Cumbrian stately home on Saturday, September 19.

POLICE in Scotland are investigating the theft of valuable jewellery after a sales representative from a London dealership was set upon by four men in an Oxfam bookshop in Perth.

POLICE are on the look out for two people following the theft of a pair of 19th century Coalport vases from an antiques centre in Shropshire.

INFORMATION on some of the valuable pieces of Sèvres porcelain stolen from Lord Gage’s Sussex stately home last month have now been released. The items taken from Firle Place are thought to be worth in the region as £1m and include a rare Sèvres Pompadour marbled ground vase from c.1761.

A LENGTHY police investigation has led to the jailing of a retired solicitor, convicted on charges linked to money laundering and efforts to sell a stolen £500,000 painting.

A WELL-ORGANISED gang targeted the premises of Cirencester auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent on May 28, taking antiques with a combined value of between £20,000-40,000.

PICTURED here is a medal commemorating the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon in 1739. It was among the items stolen from a country house museum in south Derbyshire on the afternoon of May 20.

THE Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) has stepped up its efforts to recover books stolen by its former president, David Slade, from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.

AN opportunist thief has stolen some highly individual and recognisable objects from the Lodge at Eton College.

POLICE are trying to locate the owners of a painted cast iron British Coat of Arms which was recovered in the Westcliff area of Scunthorpe in the middle of January. It is believed to have been stolen.

POLICE have asked for information about a theft that took place at Cavendish Antiques and Interiors in Suffolk in the early hours of April 11.

LAWRENCE B. Salander, the former owner of the bankrupt Manhattan art gallery Salander-O’Reilly, has been charged in a 100-count indictment with stealing $88m. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

THE Greek courts have sentenced an English antiquities dealer to three years in jail after convicting him in his absence on charges linked to stolen artefacts.

Just hours before Sotheby’s sold the contents of Gianni Versace’s Lake Como villa on March 18, they withdrew an 18th century portrait by Johann Zoffany after its subject’s family claimed that it had been stolen from their home in London 30 years ago.

DUTCH police have recovered eight paintings stolen from Robert Noortman’s gallery in Maastricht in 1987. The works, which included valuable works by Renoir and Pissarro, were traced to two small towns in the south of Holland after an alleged middleman in Dubai made an attempt to sell the paintings back to the insurers for a reported €5m (£4.5m).

DERBYSHIRE police are investigating a theft of diamond jewellery from a dealer’s hotel room after he returned from exhibiting at Dragon Fairs’ two-day Derby University fair.

POLICE are urging churches to review their security measures after 20 pieces of valuable silver were stolen in raids on three churches in Warwickshire villages in under a week.

A FORMER president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association has admitted stealing dozens of books from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild valued at a total of around £230,000.