Egypt blames lax security for theft of $55m Van Gogh

The theft from a Cairo museum of a painting by Vincent van Gogh valued at $55 million took place when only seven out of 43 security cameras were functioning, the public prosecutor said.

“Even those seven were not functioning perfectly,” Abdel- Meguid Mahmoud told reporters at the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum today on the Nile in Cairo, one day after the painting went missing. “Each painting in the museum has an alarm. Not a single alarm for any painting is working.” He declined to reveal the timing or the method of the theft.

The 1-foot-square oil painting, which is titled “Poppy Flowers” or “Vase of Flowers,” is one of 304 oil paintings and 50 sculptures in the three-story museum, built in 1920 as the residence of Egyptian art collector Mohammed Khalil. The most conservative estimate of the value of the collection is 7 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.2 billion), according to a government website.

Egypt, which boasts some of the world’s most renowned antiquities such as the golden mask of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, has been restoring many of its cultural attractions in an attempt to boost revenue from tourism, which brought in $10.76 billion in revenue last year, according to the tourism ministry. Security remains lax at many sites, the prosecutor said.

“It’s the same picture,” Mahmoud said. “No alarms working! No security measures! No control over who comes in and out, even though the numbers of people who frequent the museum are few.” According to the prosecutor, on the day of the theft only nine people visited the museum, which features works by a number of prominent European artists including Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet.

Second Theft

“Our hope is in the security agencies finding it,” the prosecutor said. “We hope that we reach a solution, not just to catch the perpetrators but how to preserve collections that circumstances have allowed us to keep in our country.”

The same van Gogh painting was stolen before in 1978 and was recovered two years later from an undisclosed location in Kuwait, the Associated Press reported, without saying how it obtained the information.

Security agencies at Egypt’s airports and border went on alert after the theft, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported yesterday. Culture Minister Faruq Hosni said late yesterday that two Italians had been detained at Cairo Airport with the canvass, before later retracting the statement, saying the painting was still missing.

Broken Statue

Adding to the museum’s troubles today, a crowd of news photographers and cameramen attempting to take pictures of the prosecutor stumbled over a statue of Cupid, which shattered on the marble floor of the entrance courtyard, sparking cries of despair from museum staff.

“Another disaster!” shouted one female museum worker, hands on her head in disbelief.

Failing to achieve popularity as an artist in his lifetime, Vincent van Gogh committed suicide in 1890 at the age of 37. His paintings have gained hugely in value since his death. “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” sold at Christie’s International Plc for $82.5 million in 1990, making it the most expensive artwork to sell at auction at the time. The previous record for a work at auction was his “Irises,” which sold for $53.9 million.

Van Gogh’s paintings have been frequent targets for art thieves. “Blossoming Chestnut Branches” was one of four paintings stolen from a Zurich museum in February 2008.

Khalil was an Egyptian parliamentarian in the 1930s and 1940s. His widow bequeathed the mansion and the art collection to the state according to his will, the government says. Khalil, who studied law at the Sorbonne University in France, died in Paris in 1953.