How about this for a tale of institutional incompetence which allowed a couple of JMW Tuner's oil paintings to be stolen whilst on loan to a German museum, some imaginative dealing between Tate Britain and the Serbian Mafia, the Paymaster General having a "cunning plan", a ransom being paid, criminals avoiding arrest and a win-win outcome for the Tate where they get to keep most of the insurance money and also get the paintings back...?
Its pure fiction I hear you say, a story of the same calibre as The Da Vinci Code...?
Well I'm sad to say that it isn't.
It is a true story, and quite a sorry tale it is too.
Not least because the windfall seems to have been used to indirectly fund Tate Modern, via some creative accounting, when we still haven't fulfilled the terms of JMW Turner's will. If you've been following this blog recently, you'll remember that JMW Turner RA required that all of the finished works that he left to the nation (with a couple of specific exceptions) should be displayed concurrently in the same gallery...
Recently published by Reaktion Books (ISBN 978 1 86189 851 7), the author Sandy Nairne was pretty central to the recovery of these pictures so the story he tells in "Art Theft" is essentially straight from the horses mouth.
It is well worth a read if you have the time and the inclination, and maybe an Amazon voucher that you can't find a better use for...
You might also be able to borrow a copy from your local Library, if your local Council haven't closed it yet...!
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