2. Poppy Flowers, the $55 million van Gogh work that remains missing after being stolen from a Cairo museum for the second time
Just hours after Van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers was stolen from an Egyptian museum, in August of 2010 police were confident they had got it back. They arrested a pair of suspicious Italian men boarding a plane out of the country. However, a thorough search of the pair’s luggage turned up nothing. The painting was gone. And its whereabouts remain a mystery, making it one of the most valuable missing artworks in the world today.
Van Gogh completed his painting of red and yellow poppies against a dark background in 1887, just three years before he took his own life. It was, according to the Dutchman’s biographers, a homage to one of Van Gogh’s heroes, Adolphe Monticelli. Though small, it was a greatly admired work. So much so, in fact, that it had been stolen before. In fact, it was taken from the same museum, the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo in the summer of 1977. It was smuggled out of the country, making its way to Kuwait and only recovered a whole decade later.
Thieves struck again in 2010. One summer evening, a gang broke into the famous museum by the banks of the River Nile, making away with just Poppy Flowers, despite this being home to many other valuable masterpieces. Following the failure at Cairo airport, the Egyptian government launched an investigation into how the painting could have been stolen for a second time. Some critics have argued that the thieves must have had some inside help. Or, at best, the museum’s security was extremely lax and unprofessional.
Who stole the Van Gogh or where it is now both remain one of the major mysteries of the art world. The Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has put up a reward for the painting’s recovery. That reward, however, is just $175,000. The painting is estimated to be worth as much as $55 million, with its value going up every year it remains missing.