(1888PressRelease)
July 05, 2008 - ARTART ( @ ) T of France, an organisation that helps track stolen artworks, has just launched the www dot stolen-and-wanted dot com website, a free-to-access database of stolen artworks dot The site is available in English and Dutch, as well as in French, German, Italian and Spanish dot
The Stolen and Wanted service is based upon two innovative concepts. Firstly, stolen works are identified on the site using bibliographic references in authoritative publications (such as museum catalogues and academic journals). Secondly, the service allows victims of theft to offer rewards to increase their chances of recovering the stolen objects.
Currently, 95% of stolen artworks are never recovered. Stolen and Wanted aims to improve this situation by using bibliographic references of stolen works, rather than just relying on detailed descriptions. This is far more effective a method of cataloguing stolen art – as dealers cannot put work up for sale without mentioning such references, their publication on a website can greatly limit the possibility of a stolen work of art being resold.
Access to the site is totally free so as to maximise traffic. However, Stolen and Wanted also allows victims of theft to offer a reward at every step of the recovery process, whether it is for locating the work on the internet, locating it physically, arresting the thieves and/or the receivers of stolen goods or, finally, for actually recovering the work. The amount of these awards is entirely at the discretion of the theft victim.
Registering stolen goods on the site is charged at a fixed rate, which is independent of the value of the stolen property. The cost varies with the chosen duration of the service – the standard rate is €300 for five years and the premium rate is €500 for an unlimited duration (it is not unusual to recover an object more than, say, 30 years after it disappeared). For the theft victim, this amount is comparable to the cost of a classified advertisement, or else to that of the insurance premium that would have been paid to cover the risk of theft of the missing work for a whole year. However, Stolen and Wanted provides much greater exposure for the same cost.
Stolen and Wanted also gives buyers the guarantee that a work being purchased was not stolen (according to the UNIDROIT Convention, the Due Diligence burden is on the purchaser of an artwork).
Stolen and Wanted differs from other less user-friendly services that exist already, which require users to pay for access, for example, or which list artworks that are often poorly photographed or inadequately described.
The site is currently available in Dutch, English French, German, Italian and Spanish.
About ARTART ( @ ) T
ARTART ( @ ) T was set up by Armand Torossian, the founder and Chairman of the Board of Management of the www.interencheres.com website, which publishes public-auction notices taking place in France, and by Gérard Torossian, an auctioneer who specialises in setting up industrial auctions. The company has the financial support of a group of private investors from the ICT sector in the Grenoble region of south-eastern France.
For further information, please go to: www.stolen-and-wanted.com
###
