海角大神

Did a cache of priceless stolen art go up in smoke in a Romanian village?

That's what the art world is afraid of, amid reports that museum forensic specialists from Romania's National History Museum are analyzing ashes found in an oven in the village of the mother of the suspected heist ringleader.

The Associated Press reports that according to Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, the museum's director, investigators found "small fragments of painting primer, the remains of canvas, the remains of paint" and copper and steel nails, some of which pre-dated the 20th century, in an oven in the village of Caracliu where Olga Dogaru lives. Mrs. Dogaru's son was arrested in January in connection with the theft of seven paintings 鈥� including works by Matisse, Monet, and Picasso 鈥� from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum last October.

Olga Dogaru says she first buried the art in an abandoned house and later in a cemetery in the village. But in February, when investigators began searching the village, she says she dug them up and burned them, reports BBC News.

Mr. Oberlander-Tarnoveanu said that investigators "discovered a series of substances which are specific to paintings and pictures," including lead, zinc, and azurite, in the oven. And while he would not say whether the ashes belonged to the stolen paintings, he said that if they did, it was "a crime against humanity."

The stolen works were Pablo Picasso's 1971 "Harlequin Head"; Claude Monet's 1901 "Waterloo Bridge, London" and "Charing Cross Bridge, London"; Henri Matisse's 1919 "Reading Girl in White and Yellow"; Paul Gauguin's 1898 "Girl in Front of Open Window"; Meyer de Haan's "Self-Portrait" of around 1890; and Lucian Freud's 2002 work "Woman with Eyes Closed." The BBC writes that they were worth between $130 million and $260 million.

The pieces were taken last October in a daring theft from the Kunsthal, which was showing them as part of an exhibition called Avant-Gardes, a selection of 150 works from the Triton Foundation Collection, privately assembled by wealthy Dutch entrepreneur Willem Cordia and his wife, Marijke.

The museum had 鈥渟tate-of-the-art" security, according to its director, though it was purely technological 鈥� no guards were present on site. Ton Cremers, a consultant on museum security, told the Monitor at the time that the works of art, which could easily be seen from outside through the windows, were perhaps too visible. 鈥淵ou want works of such value in the heart of your building, in a separate space,鈥� Mr. Cremers said.

Cremers also warned that chances of recovery were slim.

Chris Marinello of the Art Loss Register, which specializes in tracking down stolen artworks, told the AP that if Dogaru did indeed destroy the paintings, "this isn't the first time the mothers of art thieves have come to the rescue of their son."