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Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

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Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#171

Post by travisoneill1 »

elorant wrote: post #169
devindotcom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly as I understand it part of the point is that by stealing the original you are able to create both better counterfeits and a market for them. Think about it — obviously no one will buy a counterfeit "Starry Night" or whatever if it's hanging in a museum. But if it's stolen, all of a sudden there's the possibility that they can buy the original. Not only that, but the counterfeit, created with extensive a…

It's not that easy to sell counterfeit artwork. Anyone who's paying millions for an artwork will have the painting examined by a specialized consultant. The easiest way to spot a fake is to examine the pigments and whether a particular one was available by the time the artist lived. This is how the Rosales scandal was exposed in 2013.

Where are you going to find a specialized consultant expert enough to judge if its fake who also doesn't know that the painting he is looking at was recently stolen from a museum?

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#172

Post by jcranmer »

viklove wrote: post #149
phpnode wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure fantasy, who would spend $250m to acquire a stolen painting that they cannot resell? If it really is rich people buying them the purchase price is going to be a fraction of a percent of the amount you're talking about.

When your net worth is in the hundreds of billions, you can spend a couple hundred million to impress your "friends," and many billionaires do. Yeah, it's disgusting, but that's only because the modern global economy allows such disgusting levels of wealth.

The number of people with net worth in the hundreds of billion right now is... 1. The second-richest person is Bill Gates, at only $96.5 billion. By #10, we're at $50 billion. Fewer than 200 people are worth $10 billion. Granted, this only includes people with known net worths, but by the time you're hitting tens of billions, it's hard to hide that much wealth.

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#173

Post by viklove »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #162
viklove wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your net worth is in the hundreds of billions, you can spend a couple hundred million to impress your "friends," and many billionaires do. Yeah, it's disgusting, but that's only because the modern global economy allows such disgusting levels of wealth.

The "modern global economy" allows it? I suggest you look up the wealth (adjusted for inflation) of many, many historical business and political figures. Extreme wealth for a few is nothing new and if anything modern global economics and markets have done a massive leveling up of standards of living for many more people who aren't incredibly rich. That aside, how should something like your subjective notion of "disgu…

Seems like you took my statement "the modern global economy allows it," and inferred that I meant every system other than the modern one does not allow it. Of course not. Of course there are many systems that existed in the past that also allowed for gross levels of wealth disparity, but did I ever claim otherwise?

> massive leveling up of standards of living

For who? Impoverished workers in China and India? How have American labourers benefitted from globalism and Keynesian economics? They haven't, at least not in the last 50 years.

> That aside, how should something like your subjective notion of "disgusting" levels of wealth guide how much of what they earned people should be able to keep?

I think you're just pretending you're naive, but you can feel free to look up many of the proposed solutions. UBI, wealth tax, limits on how much money can be passed through inheritance, etc. There are many solutions that have been _proposed_, but the problem is that with massive wealth comes massive power, and the individuals who possess disgusting levels of wealth will never let these solutions come to be.

> what they earned

Jeff Bezos has not earned 100 billion dollars. You could probably convince me that he's earned at least 1 billion dollars, but there is absolutely no way one man can generate that much wealth in one lifetime. He has stolen his wealth through asymmetrical agreements with powerless individuals, who chose to work for him rather than starve due to a lack of accessible jobs.

We've created a system that makes individuals dependent on large corporations for healthcare and rent, and then we wonder why poor individuals can't start businesses or change jobs freely (hint hint, it's due to food security and access to healthcare). If I point a gun at you and take your money, I haven't earned anything, have I? But if I starve you out, and tell you you can't see a doctor, then I can rob you of the value of your ideas and labor. For some reason our system allows that.

Bezos got a $300k interest-free loan from his mother to start his business. Are you telling me he earned that? No, it was given to him by birthright, and it's a luxury the vast majority of people don't have.

Bezos did not earn 100 billion dollars, he stole it.

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#174

Post by abiogenesis »

grecy wrote: post #136
grawprog wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the painting gets sold to someone shady overseas for a private collection and it's never seen again. It's not like in movies, there's no romance or drama to it. Stolen art doesn't benefit the common good.

> and it's never seen again ... until it's stolen again and the cycle repeats. Sure, it might take a few generations, but it will come around again.

Governments should finance teams of thieves to steal those back from private collections and place them back to public museums.

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#176

Post by csomar »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #171
elorant wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy to sell counterfeit artwork. Anyone who's paying millions for an artwork will have the painting examined by a specialized consultant. The easiest way to spot a fake is to examine the pigments and whether a particular one was available by the time the artist lived. This is how the Rosales scandal was exposed in 2013.

Where are you going to find a specialized consultant expert enough to judge if its fake who also doesn't know that the painting he is looking at was recently stolen from a museum?

These are oil paintings. I don't have much expertise in that but I think it'll be impossible to counterfeit the smallest details.

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#177

Post by [deleted] »

grawprog wrote: post #134
iandanforth wrote: post #127

I fully approve of art theft. There should be honor among thieves of course. You shouldn't damage art. But if a painting isn't stolen now and then, well it wasn't worth painting in the first place. Really, what is art for but to enliven the doldrums of the rich? A moment or three of aesthetic pleasure, bragging at parties, but really most days it's just so much wallpaper. No, the true purpose of art is to be stolen.…

Or the painting gets sold to someone shady overseas for a private collection and it's never seen again. It's not like in movies, there's no romance or drama to it. Stolen art doesn't benefit the common good.

[deleted]

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#178

Post by jbc1 »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #171
elorant wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy to sell counterfeit artwork. Anyone who's paying millions for an artwork will have the painting examined by a specialized consultant. The easiest way to spot a fake is to examine the pigments and whether a particular one was available by the time the artist lived. This is how the Rosales scandal was exposed in 2013.

Where are you going to find a specialized consultant expert enough to judge if its fake who also doesn't know that the painting he is looking at was recently stolen from a museum?

Why do they need to not know that it was recently stolen from a museum?

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#179

Post by Igelau »

bogomipz wrote: post #56
mulmen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently they can be used as collateral between criminals for loans. They can also be used as an insurance policy if the criminal is ever caught. Offer to exchange the art for a lesser sentence. A literal get out of jail free card.

This was the certainly the case in the Gardner Museum heist in Boston in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museu... https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gardner-heist-suspect-rele...

Those police sketches of the thieves look an awful lot like Mario and Luigi...

Re: Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

#180

Post by joecool1029 »

abiogenesis wrote: post #174
grecy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it's never seen again ... until it's stolen again and the cycle repeats. Sure, it might take a few generations, but it will come around again.

Governments should finance teams of thieves to steal those back from private collections and place them back to public museums.

Who says they don't? China's likely smart enough to figure this out: https://www.gq.com/story/the-great-chinese-art-heist
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