Lost Masterpieces: Part 2

Throughout history, many pieces of valuable art have been stolen and never recovered.

Emily Holmes

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Art has served as an outlet for people to express their inner thoughts and let their creativity bloom for all of recorded history. Great art pieces have existed for ages, and humans have misplaced them in one way or another for nearly as long. Senior Isaac Hoglund feels that the fact that art pieces are still going missing is terrible.

“I feel that the missing art pieces are pathetic,” Hoglund said. “The world should have done more to find them because those pieces were absolutely priceless. It is a part of society ravaged by war once again. Losing something that our children will never be able to see in the safety of a museum is pathetic because us as a human race could’ve done more.”

With time, comes great value for such pieces of art and that causes many paintings to get stolen or damaged. Here are three of the top missing paintings, according to the Telegraph.

 

Picasso’s Harlequin Head

Disappeared in: October 2012

Reward offered: Undisclosed

This piece was painted by Picasso in 1971 and was taken in the Dutch Kunsthal Gallery theft. It is not yet clear if the remains of the paintings have been found in the ashes.

 

Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man

Disappeared in: 1945

Reward offered: Undisclosed

The 16th-century oil painting disappeared at the end of World War II. Although the painting was rescued from the Czartoryski Museum,Kraków, in 1939, it was taken by the Gestapo to decorate Hitler’s Berlin residence. In 1945, senior Nazi official Hans Frank took the paintings from the Führer’s collection to the royal Wawel Castle. It has not been seen since, apart from in popular culture references: Portrait of a Young Man has popped up in The Simpsons.

 

Van Gogh’s Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene

Disappeared in: 2002

Reward offered: £870,000

This painting is one of two stolen from the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in December 2002. Two thieves broke into the building through the roof, and managed to steal Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Neunen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen in just a few minutes. Together, the works are thought to be worth £25 million. Although Dutch police convicted two men a year later, the paintings remain unrecovered.