The Art Loss Register

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The Art Loss Register

The Art Loss Register is the world's largest private database of stolen, missing and looted art, antiques and collectibles, listing half a million items. 1.

The Art Loss Register (ALR) was established in 1990 and is based in London.

2. There are more than 700,000 items listed on the ALR database. The range of items is considerable and includes paintings, sculptures, antiquities, watches, clocks, jewellery, musical instruments, furniture, books and coins.

3. Furthermore, the ALR holds records of fakes and forgeries, items which are subject to a dispute, and items against which a loan has been secured. The ALR also offers a pre-loss registration service for museums and large permanent collections.

4. The ALR provides a due diligence service widely used across the art market. It routinely checks the catalogues of major auction houses and art fairs, checks art which is pledged as collateral and handles ad-hoc searches for dealers, museums, pawnbrokers and collectors. Over 450,000 items are searched against the database each year.

5. Worldwide, over 130 auction houses subscribe to the ALR to have their sales checked for stolen items. A list of all subscribing auction houses can be found on the following link: http://www.artloss.com/searching/auction-houses

6. The ALR’s due diligence services are employed by 14 major international art fairs, including Art Basel, TEFAF, Frieze Masters, Masterpiece, Cologne Fine Art and Art Cologne.

7. When a stolen item is located, the ALR offers a recovery service, working closely with law enforcement agencies and insurance companies. Follow us on:
https://twitter.com/artlossreg https://www.linkedin.com/company/art-loss-register

14/09/2026

We are delighted to announce the recovery of Alfred Lepère’s ‘Faune Chasseur’ to the Musée de Picardie.

Stolen in 1993 from the zoological gardens at Amiens Zoo, the ALR located the 136kg, 2.4 metre high sculpture at a subscribing US auction house in July last year. Working with the French State and The Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), the ALR negotiated the sculpture’s return to France cumulating with its return to the Musee de Picardie in Amiens at the beginning of this month.

The work was commissioned by the French State in 1863 and installed in the Musée de Picardie that same year, when this first purpose-built museum opened. Here, it can be seen on display in the museum around 1900.

The sculpture is now back on display for the public to experience after its 33-year absence.

This recovery offers hope for museums and public collections that stolen artworks can be recovered even decades after a theft.

Images:

1. The sculpture exhibited in the Museum c.1900. (c) Musée de Picardie documentation.
2 & 3. The sculpture back on display in the Museum, September 2026. (c) Gauthier Gillmann / Musée de Picardie.
4. The ALR’s Charlotte Chambers-Farah and Pierre Stépanoff, Director of the Musée de Picardie in front of the recovered sculpture.

08/09/2026

**WE ARE HIRING**

We are looking for an Associate to support our work with auction houses, art fairs and the wider art market. This is a varied, client-facing role with exposure to different aspects of the business.

Candidates must have or intend to gain the right to work in the UK. For the full job spec please see the link in our bio.

To apply to this role please submit your CV and a cover letter of no more than 300 words to [email protected] by 5:30pm BST on Sunday 20th September.

29/07/2026

In the closing months of 2021, the ALR helped locate six missing artworks stolen from a Viennese private collection after they had been put into storage following the owner’s death.

The ALR had been asked to check a Chinese bronze dining vessel from the Shang period (Image 1) and recognised that it was one of the stolen pieces. The ALR alerted the police to its whereabouts
with surprising results; the searcher who had submitted the item to be checked turned out to be the perpetrator responsible for the theft!

Upon searching the thief’s house not only were the other missing items discovered but also many more works of art which had been stolen from the storage facility.

Read more on the story here:
https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000132113899/landeskriminalamt-deckt-diebstahl-aus-kunstdepot-auf

26/06/2026

Last night the ALR hosted Yaam at Treasure House Fair!

We have been working with the fair since its inception in 2023, checking works exhibited against our database alongside the vetting committees to ensure that all works displayed at the fair can be purchased with good legal title.

24/06/2026

ALR Recovery!
Van Kessel the Elder and Abraham Williemsens ‘Interior of a Collector’s Cabinet: An Allegory of Sight’ c.1660

The painting was stolen in September 2020 from a private residence in Ontario, Canada.

After immediately reporting the theft the police, the painting was also registered with the ALR by the victim. AXA XL paid on the ensuing insurance claim and thus secured the right to claim the stolen painting if it ever reappeared.

In October 2023, the painting was identified when Sotheby’s checked the item against the ALR database as part of their standard due diligence process. The painting had been offered to Sotheby’s with detailed cataloguing and provenance, alongside a claim that the consignor had bought it from a 2015 sale in Switzerland, the same sale in fact at which the theft victim themselves had purchased the work. The ALR team immediately matched it to the 2020 registration of the stolen painting, and Sotheby’s was informed of the item’s stolen status.

The potential consignor then went silent for over a year. Eventually the ALR, representing the insurer, was able to secure a response from him and the recovery of the painting. The painting was shipped to Sotheby’s New York in August 2025 and sold for just under US$90,000, over twice its high estimate at the beginning of this year.

This recovery demonstrates not only the benefit of registering stolen works with our database, but also the great value of due diligence checks carried out by the art market. We are grateful to Sotheby’s for their diligence and assistance in this case, which enabled the recovery of this picture and a very successful subsequent sale for the benefit of the insurer.

17/06/2026

Art Basel is this week! Art Basel

Please stop by the ALR stand in the entrance hall and say hi if you are at the fair this week

We were delighted to share our views in Art Basel’s ‘Art Market Report: The Modern masters are back’, discussing the growing importance of due diligence checks and provenance to collectors in today’s market - read through the link in our bio.

21/05/2026

Happy International Tea day!!! 🫖

—

Here is a selection of our favourite tea themed ALR registrations.

All these items are registered on th ALR database and included in our going checks of the international art markets.

20/05/2026

**STILL MISSING**

16 years ago today, a collection of 5 works with an estimated value exceeding 100 million euros was stolen from The Museum of Modern Art, Paris. Referred to by French outlets as ‘Spiderman’, Vjeran Tomic tore away works by Modiglini, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, and Leger in the early hours of May 20th, 2010.

In court, Tomic explained that it was a theft-for-hire scheme devised by Parisian gallerist, Michel Corvez. Although he was commissioned only for Leger’s Still Life with Candlestick, Tomic made off with the other works simply because he could; he had avoided tripping any alarms, moving with complete freedom in the night.

Today, the whereabouts of the five works is unknown. A third accomplice to the operation, watch-dealer Yonathan Birn, claims to have destroyed all five works after police raided his store. Many doubt this conclusion, including Birn’s own wife and Tomic.

All 5 artworks are included on the ALR database and are included in our ongoing checks against the market.

List of stolen works :
1.Amadeo Modigliani, ‘Woman with a Fan’ 1919
2.Henri Matisse, ‘Pastoral’ 1906
3.Pablo Picasso, ‘Pigeon with Peas’ 1911
4.Georges Braque, ‘Olive Tree near Estaque’ 1906
5.Fernand Leger, ‘Still Life with Candlestick’ 1922

19/05/2026

A huge thank you to for a great result last night on this recovery!

—

Pablo Picasso, ‘L’Atelier’, 1955

27/04/2026

Whitworth Art Gallery Theft: Three Artworks Stolen - All Recovered.

In the early hours of 27th April 2003, three works by Picasso, Gauguin and Van Gogh were stolen from Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery. The next day, following a telephone tip-off, they were recovered in a public lavatory on the edge of a small park, 200 metres away.

No one has ever been charged over the theft. The thief bypassed the gallery’s security system and removed the fragile watercolours from their frames to roll them up into a cardboard tube. This was later abandoned lent up against the closed lavatory building. Along with the recovered paintings was a note saying that “the intention was not to steal only to highlight the woeful security”.

The paintings had been left next to sodden leaves and litter on an extremely rainy day, so unsurprisingly the Van Gogh, ‘Fortifications of Paris with Horses’ watercolour suffered damage, with a 12cm tear to its right side, creasing and minor paint losses - now restored.

The gallery has since upgraded its security systems and now stands on par with that of national museums. The theft demonstrates a constant anxiety for regional museums who must balance budgeting for their collections against security measures.

All three items were immediately registered on the Art Loss Register database on the day of the theft to ensure they were not moved quickly through the market.

Artworks:

- Pablo Picasso, ‘Poverty’, 1903
- Paul Gauguin, ‘Tahitian Landscape’, 1891-93
- Vincent van Gogh, ‘The Fortifications of Paris with Houses’, 1878

Address

16 Black Friars Lane
London
EC4V6EB

Website

http://www.artloss.com/

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