UK and US Top List of Most Reported Art Thefts

As writer Judith H. Dobrzynski puts it “If you live in Britain, better hide that Picasso.” She’s referring to a recent study released by the Art Loss Register that ranks countries by the total amount of reported art thefts. We would have said that Brazil was near the top, given those high-profile thefts and crazy museum embarrassments from a while back, but turns out it’s the UK and the US right there at the very top of the list (and the UK has more than double our thieving levels). We had no idea there were that many art thefts going on (roughly 6,000 pieces since 2006 in the US alone), so now we’re either going to keep our eyes a little more peeled the next time we’re at a galley or we’re just going to get into the business of art theft ourselves. But before you start letting those rankings wreck your national pride, Dobrzynski mentions this:

Don’t read too much into the list: it’s likely that art theft is rampant in rich Asian countries, say, but it’s just not reported to ALR, which is based in London and New York.

She does say, however, that the trends found by the Art Loss Register are important, however. And going back to Brazil, we find that we weren’t totally wrong. Between 2000 and 2005, they had just 9 thefts. From 2006 to today, there have been 3,154.

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