Antiquarianation

A privately-owned art collection, on public display for the first time, was plundered on Tuesday in Rotterdam. Seven paintings were stolen from the Dutch Kunsthal museum in the latest instance of art theft in Europe. The works stolen were  Matisse's "Reading Girl in White and Yellow," Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London" and "Waterloo Bridge, London," Gauguin's "Girl in Front of Open Window," Meyer de Haan’s "Self-Portrait," Picasso’s "Harlequin Head," and Freud’s "Woman With Eyes Closed."  Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London" Image courtesy of Police Rotterdam, the Netherlands With stolen art notoriously difficult -- if not impossible -- to fence, speculation abounds that the works were stolen-to-order. The New York Times reported: "Marc Masurovsky, a historian and an expert on plundered art in Washington, noted the possibility that the theft was 'contract job,...

A rare first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , inscribed "from the author" to Lord Byron is being offered for sale in London! Sealed bids are being accepted until October 3rd. According to an article about this incredible find in Fine Books Magazine , "This presentation copy of an important book from one famous author to another bears witness to one of the most intriguing literary friendships -- as the legend goes, it was Byron who dared the teenaged Shelley to write a 'ghost story.'" See more pictures and a video about the book, being hand;ed by Peter Harrington Books, here . In other news, a Nazi-owned Tibetan statue was discovered to be made out of a meteorite According to Art Daily the statue was brought from Tibet to Germany in 1938 by a "Nazi-backed venture [which] set out for Tibet in 1938 in part to trace the origins of the Aryan race -- a cornerstone of the Nazi's racist ideology." The statue came to au...