Stolen Renoir paintings found hidden, and damaged, behind cinder block wall
cbsnews.com
cbsnews.com
It opens with a guy who's complaining to the police about the frequent robbery of his house. They view him as a nuisance and try to respond to his complaints as little as possible.
Eventually someone is apprehended committing a different crime in a different location. An officer visits him in the hospital (there was a mighty struggle before he was caught) and asks if he'd be willing to lower his sentence by potentially resolving some other outstanding crimes that the police are investigating.
She reads off a list of crimes, and he responds "yeah, that was me" to everything she says. One of the items is the several robberies of the guy we met earlier.
It's win-win; his sentence is lowered for doing the police a favor, and the police report a higher solve rate.
After that, the original guy who was always brushed off suffers another robbery. Since he happens to be home at the time of the latest one, he is severely beaten.
I wonder what victims have gotta say about that...
You only let them say anything every four years or so. And then you set aside their complaints by saying some of them are made up.
But it is true that most national states will have a dialogue with organised crime, and privilege the pursuit of this or that interest over blind punishment. Greater good and all that.
“Thought you were going up in the world, did you Salvo? Oh no, no Armand Guillaumin for you. The boss ain’t pleased and he wants you to know about it. One more screwup and you’ll end up with a face like that”
But this is a painting of his own young son, Jean (who went on to be a legendary director, screenwriter, actor).
So one presumes there's a method in it, because nobody hates a kid that much.
But also yes. When he was not doing paintings with lots of faces or naked ladies he was on slightly more solid ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paintings_by_Pierre-Au...
https://lastmuseum.com/artist/auguste-renoir
e.g. I like the Alfred Sisley painting and the more realist painting of his father, and Madame Clementine Valensi Stora which he apparently repudiated.
But I don't think he ever painted a truly good female nude, and some are just utterly reductive (as a photography nerd I find Torso Effect of Sunlight to be the most interesting but the face oh the face)
Loads of it is really rather Monkey Christ, on reflection, and after about 1905 nothing is great.
So I do sympathise with the joke.
Also those were artists deliberately breaking the rigid rules of realist classicism and finding inspiration on Asian art. Renoir was criticized by its figures "with skin and clothes obscenely stained with what seems dirty greasy oil spots" but the big point was to trigger controversy and to flip the bird to the classicism of the "real" professional artists.
But it’s not the shapes of the bodies that I have an issue with, in general. (Apart from the whole cherubic, gravity free aspect.)
It’s the fact that the faces are terrible, featureless, ugly, often scarily unsettling and clownish, the heads are poorly proportioned, the eyes often dead or doll-like.
He painted out the realism of women just as they were demanding equality, IMO. In the real world, women were demanding better pay, better work protection and votes; in Renoir’s world they were often overgrown insipid cherubs, no evidence of angst or really any kind of inner life. His paintings of male faces, largely, are grounded in more realism even into his late era.
Not exactly. Women depicted other women as ideal models. Men had a different idea on mind.
There were two types of male painters in that years. Some had enough money to receive a full classical training in Art Academy. Other, like Renoir, came from poverty and blue collar families and had to self-train themselves. They didn't have any access to the elites, and were ignored and mocked by the classically trained ones.
They fought back rebelling against the rigid academy rules, and using shock and scandal so their real experience about the real world couldn't be ignored anymore.
Where Elites embraced paintings of women suggesting opulence (I'm a rich person, I can buy this clothes), mythology (I'm an educated person), elegance or beauty (I'm successful and popular). Blue collared people show proudly their favorite feminine attributes: fecundity and sex.
Renoir could paint a smooth perfect realist face, if he painted a bunch of spots instead, it was a way to declare "I don't want this model to be identified. She received an anonymous face, because is anonymous. Realism and a polished look is not the important thing here". Or maybe he was just drunk and didn't cared. Who knows. Their fellows deliberately rejected the classic glass skins and polished strokes as a way to depict human nature, and founded the modern painting deconstructing the body in all the possible ways on Cubism, Fauvism, Pointillism or Impressionism.
Blue collared painters often painted prostitutes, like a way to shout "this is the real world", "this is what really matters". Some delivered the message in a pretty savage way, even for today standards (See L'Origin Du Monde from Courbet). If you think that all the models were slimmer in 1870, see The Baigneuses also from the same painter.
They proudly show a more free, rebelious underworld (Manet, Dejeuner sur L'Herbe). And many of the big names that came later learned the lesson and became famous selling a fantasy of freedom and underworld to their rich clients.
The real valuable part was not the art (in my opinion). What clients were eager to pay for, was the connections
Dali assured to be filmed always surrounded by beautiful young people. Warhol had their own collection of rare and beautiful animals around to show. Bacon and Hockney played the same role creating safe spaces or became models for Transvestite or LGTB people.
This is the lesson to all future artists. Stick a banana to a wall, it does not matter. Is just an excuse to people came and laugh. What matters is the value of your social net. What you can do to entertain your rich clients, to help them to launder their money, to connect them with famous people, drug dealers, or "trustable" sexual workers.
But this is just my personal opinion, and is fine if other differ.
> But, but... women demanding equality!
This was never about women demanding equality. Art was a war of classes
> This was never about women demanding equality. Art was a war of classes
If you're going to use > to quote me, please don't rephrase what I said in a dishonest/patronising manner.
The rest of this, frankly, I think is mostly either wrong, nihilistic or just a bit distasteful, so I will leave it at that.
[1] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2015/07/01/experts-identify-...
I don't understand why anyone would want to buy something outside of its legal socio-economic context, when that thing's entire value is derived from that context and is otherwise worth very little intrinsically based purely on aesthetic value.
Any market value it sells for is then based on some shared mental deficiency which prevents people from understanding that.
And, a thing's economic value is derived from what someone else will pay for it, and only that. If someone else (or several someones) will buy it, whether or not the law agrees that it's legal, then the thing is valuable. (See drugs for an example.)
I wouldn't say that such people have a mental deficiency. A moral deficiency, yes, absolutely, but not a mental one.
One owner who knows the value but won't sell at that or any value, one willing to pay a thief less than that value, the thief, and a buyer willing to pay more than the thief was payed.
"Wow, the museum payed a million dollars for this? I'd be willing to pay 5."
"Oh? Suppose I know a guy who'll nick it? Now, it'd be stolen so I couldn't charge quite as much, but the guy takes his cut up front, so let's call it 2?"
"Really? Gee, that's a steal"
cue: looney tunes
Right, but what about your local brick dealer who has 10-50K to waste on whatever? Definitely way more common and easier than you think to unload these sort of things, once you go down in price a lot because of the circumstances.
Notice how things aren’t being stolen at this magnitude in China? Japan? If we’re Russian or Iranian for example I think this would be a great strategy if you view yourself at a civilizational war. Most of Europe is still asleep or in denial.
Stealing from a Chinese museum would be extremely difficult. Cameras and security staff monitor exhibits during the day, and even after hours, extensive surveillance everywhere, makes it hard to get away unnoticed. The risk is simply too high
https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/10/14/european-museums...
I guess - is your overall point that criminals only care about European art which is why it’s stolen?
You only need one.
With something like this I imagine you could hold on to it for years or even a lifetime waiting for the right connection to come along. Maybe some of them are even commissioned or pre-sold.
I can’t say I know anyone with stolen art, but over my lifetime I’ve known people across a range of wealth classes who got a thrill out of acquiring and owning something that was risky contraband.
I always wondered if these sorts of people actually existed, with a Mona Lisa tucked away in a secret room, or something. And it turns out, yes, they really do.
That’s how this would go. How do you expect it would go?
It had a very low value when it was purloined, but if it were to appear on the open market right now I have no idea what the price would be. Seven digits, easily. It's like snatching a Banksy from his first gallery show in 2001 when his stuff was like $100 on the wall of a restaurant.
It's not quite as romantic as a Goldfinch style heist. Although I feel in some ways it might be to the same point where they can no longer return it since it's become bigger than they thought. I don't believe they need the money, so it might be a Thomas Crown situation and it might just end up being anonymously dropped back off one day.
You don’t know anyone who downloaded a movie?
https://documenti.camera.it/leg18/dossier/testi/gi0031b.htm
"is committed by the person who has collaborated in identifying the co-conspirators or has ensured evidence of the crime or has effectively worked to prevent the criminal activity from being carried to further consequences or has recovered or had recovered the cultural property subject to the crime (penalty reduced from one third to two thirds)."
1: The stolen art sits around for a LONG TIME.
2: The provenance (papers) is forged
3: The buyer usually doesn't look too closely. They're either willing to fool themselves, gullible, or otherwise should know better.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-case-of-the-4-million-g...
Humans are always the hole in the security you build, no matter how good the wall is.
> In addition to DNA, the investigators were also able to benefit from a happy combination of circumstances since “the burglars, after abandoning in the hinterland, near the ski resort of Gréolières, the stolen vehicle that was used for the breakage, took back theirs which was, possibly in the context of another case, equipped with a police beacon,” the lawyer told AFP. The police were thus able to track the car.
https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/le-principal-suspect-...
Who are these people that want priceless art they can't show anyone?
Remember when Kim Kardashian accidentally took a picture of herself next to some stolen statue? So it was uncovered because of her negligence.
It sort of hints that there's this class of ultra rich people who move in their own stratosphere and look at each other's possibly stolen art without snitching each other out.
Turns an otherwise illiquid asset into cash that the estate could use.
Missed opportunity IMO. It was where it belongs.
You know how Anthropic has banned being cruel to its models? I wonder if the definition includes asking it to generate images in the style of Renoir…
https://www.instagram.com/renoir_sucks_at_painting/
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-bites-renoir-sucks-mov...
(ETA: Flagged, haha really? Come on. It’s a well-known running joke.)
(It’s a joke. Like Birds Aren’t Real)
are you serious and it is your actual position or is it also a joke?
Having different opinion on whether this specific paintings are beautiful at all, and whether they are "some of the best paintings ever created" specifically is going to a poor indicator of being fascist or communist.
Sure but the fascists and communists are the ones spoiling our collective breakfast.
> Having different opinion on whether this specific paintings are beautiful at all, and whether they are "some of the best paintings ever created" specifically is going to a poor indicator of being fascist or communist.
They are objectively some of the best. It’s not a matter that can be debated. But that is besides the point. The point is that authoritarian losers (fascists, commies) specifically hate them for ideological reasons.
You can look at the Mona Lisa and say eh not my favorite, but you can’t deny it’s one of the greatest artworks ever created. If someone is trying to convince you otherwise it’s only for ideological reasons - it has nothing to do with understanding or appreciate of artwork.
I guess they were going to share the one PC.