10. Reading Girl in White and Yellow by Henri Matisse
Although primarily known as a painter, Henri Matisse was also a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. Along with Pablo Picasso, this French genius is regarded as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
And so we come to our last entry on our list of crimes against culture with La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune or Reading Girl in White and Yellow, painted by Matisse in 1919. The painting depicting a woman deep in thought reading a book, sitting next to a table decorated with flowers.
This masterpiece might seem somehow familiar to you, why you ask? That’s because it was another of the painting’s stolen by a gang of Romanian thieves On October 16, 2012 from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam. Our seventh entry on this list.
It appears that the Romanian thieves might have discovered what many art thieves have before them, that easily identifiable paintings by famous artists are extremely difficult to sell at anything like their auction value, if at all.
As stated in number seven, the evidence to suggest Ms. Olga Dogaru did indeed torch all seven missing artworks is extremely compelling as Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of Romania’s National History Museum, would attest to.
He told the press that museum forensic specialists 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.
It would seem that this case, regardless of what investigators discovered in a fire place in rural Romania, will remain in limbo indefinitely. However, much like yourself reading this right now, I have little to no doubt that these seven masterpieces have been lost to not only the fire but to the world as a whole.
Enjoy 50 Henri Matisse masterpieces here
