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ART CRIME ALERT
Masterwork Stolen in Australia
6/10/2007

A Cavalier
by Dutch artist Frans Van Mieris was stolen in June while on display at an art gallery in Sydney, Australia.

Please be on the lookout, no matter where you live in the world, for the 350-year-old painting pictured here—A Cavalier, by Dutch artist Frans Van Mieris—recently stolen from an Australian art gallery. Valued at more than $1 million, it is the latest addition to the FBI Top Ten Art Crimes list.

Here are the facts:
… The painting was taken on Sunday, June 10, 2007 from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney while the museum was open to the public.
… An oil on oak panel, it depicts a man believed to be the artist seated in a chair wearing a feathered cap and formal attire.
… The work of art is tiny—without the frame, the painting is just 20 centimeters high and 16 centimeters wide, or roughly 6 x 8 inches.
… It was secured to the wall before disappearing from a small room within the gallery, which holds significant collections of Australian, European, and Asian art.

The Van Mieris addition replaces a 1778 painting by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes recovered last November by FBI agents in the FBI Newark field office. Goya’s Children with a Cart had been stolen from a transport truck in Pennsylvania while in transit from the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THESE WORKS OF ART OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THESE CRIMES, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI FIELD OFFICE OR THE NEAREST U.S. EMBASSY OR CONSULATE OR SUBMIT A TIP ONLINE