Stolen Art Alert

Details of how IFAR helped recover pre-Columbian onyx bowls for the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University. The theft has inspired the Institute to upgrade its security system

Administrators urged to re-evaluate security in the light of a major increase in museum thefts.

Three major thefts of French school artists, Van Gogh, Dufy, Picasso and other modern masters account for a multi-million dollar loss in December.

An amicable settlement of longstanding O'Keeffe v. Snyder case over the possession of three paintings lost in 1946. (See Stolen Art Alert, Vol. 1, No. 8, August 1980.)

Egyptian relief fragment withdrawn from sale as Egyptologists suspect it may belong to the Liebighaus, in Frankfurt, that lost such a relief in 1977.

Two civil suits (Turner v. ACA Galleries and an appeal by Richard Feigen over Porter v Wertz) revive the memory of con man Harold von Maker, who disappeared in 1973 after the confiscation of his assets and whom the FBI is still actively pursuing.