Arthur Brand (born )
is a Dutch art crime investigator
who has recovered over 200 works of art. His vocation is being an art historian and art consultant.
It is for the love of art that he takes on lost art recovery as a personal interest.
Brand's interest in stolen art recovery began when he was an exchange student in southern Spain. Together with some Romani people he met there, he went on a treasure hunt that resulted in the discovery of three silver Roman coins. He was inspired by that journey to begin conducting detective work on his own. He conducted research through newspapers to learn about stolen works of art.
Amongst other works, he tracked down a 1600-year-old missing mosaic, and a Byzantine-era depiction of St. Mark that was stolen four decades previously. He also helped recover
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...
’s "Adolescence", during which
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
quoted that "He's described as the
Indiana Jones
''Indiana Jones'' is an American media franchise based on the adventures of Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., a fictional professor of archaeology, that began in 1981 with the film '' Raiders of the Lost Ark''. In 1984, a prequel, '' Th ...
of the art world". Other recovered works include
Tamara de Lempicka
Tamara Łempicka (born Tamara Rosalia Gurwik-Górska; 16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), better known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art De ...
's ''
The Musician''. Brand was involved in the pursuit of several paintings that were stolen from the Dutch city of Hoorn.
He retrieved
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's ring, returned to
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
's
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the st ...
,
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
's Buste de Femme and Van Gogh's ''
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen
''The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen'' ( nl, De pastorie in Nuenen), alternatively named ''The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring'' ( nl, De pastorie in Nuenen in het voorjaar) or ''Spring Garden'' ( nl, Lentetuin: F185, JH484), is an early oil pai ...
'' in September 2023.
Six paintings stolen from the town hall of
Medemblik
Medemblik () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. It lies immediately south of the polder and former municipality of Wieringermeer.
History
Medemblik was a prosperous ...
in September 2023 were delivered anonymously to Brand's door in October 2023.
He has written two books about his recoveries (''Hitler's Horses'' and ''Het verboden Judas-evangelie en de schat van Carchemish'') and there is a Dutch documentary series about his recoveries: ''De Kunstdetective''. A third book, ''De kunstdetective'' has been announced for publication by
Boekerij in June 2024.
Selected publications
*
:* English edition, translated by Jane Hedley-Prôle:
*
References
External links
*
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
1960s births
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