Art thief in L.A swipes Diego Rivera work and others worth millions
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A thief entered a house in the L.A. neighborhood of Encino and stole more than a dozen original paintings, most valued at six figures and some worth millions.
Among the works stolen Saturday was Mexican painter Diego Rivera‘s ‘Mexican Peasant.’
The side door of the home in the hills of Encino was unlocked on the Saturday morning in late August. The elderly owners were in a back room, otherwise occupied. The maid had stepped out. So the thief stepped in -- and made quick work of the wealthy real estate investors’ multimillion-dollar art collection. Marc Chagall’s ‘Les Paysans,’ gone. Diego Rivera’s ‘Mexican Peasant,’ a blank spot on the wall. Arshile Gorky’s ‘Cubist Still Life,’ ditto. By the time the maid returned about an hour later, at least a dozen artworks — frames and all — had been stripped from the home. A collection that took more than half a century to compile was dismantled in less than 60 minutes. The antitheft system, for whatever reason, did not prevent the heist, ‘ report Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Andrew Blankstein and Maria L. LaGanga.
Read more about the art heist here.