Art Thefts

A multimillion-dollar collection of original work by famed Pop Art icon Andy Warhol was stolen last week from a Los Angeles home, police said Friday. On Sept. 3, a housekeeper for noted art collector Richard L. Weisman walked into the dining room of Weisman's residence and saw that 11 large portraits that had been on the walls the day before were gone, according to Det. Donald Hrycyk, head of the LAPD's art theft detail. The housekeeper called police, and investigators soon brought in Hrycyk, who has spent years chasing forgers and thieves in the shady art underworld.

The green patina gave the bronze statue of a gold miner a sense of antiquity, speaking to its 80 years of service in a small park in Mid-City Los Angeles. And then last week, a 22-month-old boy on his way home from day care noticed something awry in his daily routine. "No, no, no," he said from the back seat. His mother, Clara Magyar, turned to look. The 7-foot miner was gone.

Police have arrested a suspect in the heist of two Pablo Picasso prints from a museum in Sao Paulo and recovered one of the works, police and a museum official said Saturday. Inspector Cesar Carlos Dias said information obtained through wiretaps of gang members suspected in unrelated robberies led police to Ueslei Barros, the suspect in the July robbery.

Peter Sachs was only a year old in 1938 when the Nazis seized his father's collection of rare posters and the Jewish family fled to the United States. He returned to Germany on Tuesday for the first time in nearly seven decades to try to recover the thousands of first-run prints that could be worth as much as $50 million.

ITALIAN police have unearthed the hidden cache of a group of grave robbers, recovering ancient Roman marble reliefs depicting stunningly lifelike gladiators locked in mortal combat, officials said Wednesday. The 12 panels were buried in the garden of a home near Fiano Romano, 25 miles north of Rome. Officials hailed it as a major archeological find and a blow to the illegal antiquities market. Archeologists said the work offers a glimpse into early gladiator fights.

A special German panel ruled Thursday against returning a valuable collection of rare posters stolen by the Nazis to the son of the artwork's Jewish owner. Peter Sachs was only a year old in 1938 when his father's collection of 12,500 posters was seized and his family fled Germany for the United States. Sachs, 69, of Sarasota, Fla.

AUTHORITIES have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown on a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in southern Spain, the Spanish Civil Guard said Wednesday. The raids took place in several provinces, including Seville, Madrid and Barcelona, where police searched at least 68 homes, said Civil Guard spokesman Jose Manuel Escudero. About 300,000 pieces have been recovered, including gold coins, vessels, amphoras and other objects, he added.

Two Picasso paintings worth a total of nearly $66 million were stolen from the apartment of the artist's granddaughter here, French police said Wednesday. The paintings, "Maya With Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline," disappeared Monday night or early Tuesday from the 7th \o7arrondissement\f7, or district, a police official said. The thieves were so quiet that the two people in the apartment of Diana Widmaier-Picasso didn't hear them, police said.

The FBI has recovered a painting that appears to be a Norman Rockwell work stolen from suburban St. Louis more than three decades ago. Law enforcement officials believe the painting could be the original of Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom," snatched during a late-night burglary at a gallery in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973. "We think we have located it. It has not been authenticated," said FBI spokesman Pete Krusing.

A Norman Rockwell painting stolen from a Missouri gallery 34 years ago was recovered and authenticated Friday in the collection of movie mogul Steven Spielberg. Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy, said the director's staff contacted the FBI several weeks ago after seeing a bulletin from the agency's Art Crime Team seeking clues about the theft of the "Russian Schoolroom" oil painting. "The second anybody said, 'I think we have that painting,' [our] office got a hold of the FBI," Levy said.