Theft at Art Cologne, Five Suspects to Stand Trial for Looted Gold Bars From an 18th-Century Shipwreck, and More: Morning Links for November 12, 2026

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Good Morning!

• A 1962 gold-colored bronze sculpture by Jean Arp, priced at $160,800, was stolen from the booth of Ludorff Gallery on November 8, the final day of the Art Cologne fair.
• Five suspects, including two US citizens, involved in the case of looted gold bars from an 18th-century shipwreck, are due to stand trial in Brest, western France, in May, 2027.
• A memorial mural in Milan depicting Hamas’s October 7th kidnapping of Nova music festival-goers in Israel was painted over by city authorities, sparking an outcry.

The Headlines

ART COLOGNE THEFT. A 1962 gold-colored bronze sculpture by Jean (Hans) Arp, priced at €145,000 ($160,800), was stolen from the booth of Ludorff Gallery on November 8, the final day of the Art Cologne fair, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The gallery has filed a police report and posted an appeal to the public for information on its website, asking for information and any photographs visitors may have taken, particularly around the time of the theft, between 4:55 p.m. and 5:10 p.m. “If you are being offered for sale the work … at any point in the future or if you have any information regarding its whereabouts, please contact us or the police,” states the gallery. The stolen artwork is titled S’élevant (Rising) and has the characteristic, organic form of Arp’s later practice. It was on display at Art Cologne from November 4 to 8. “It is deeply regrettable that an incident of this kind has cast a shadow over what was otherwise a very successful and enjoyable fair for us,” added the gallery.

FOOL’S GOLD. Five suspects, including two US citizens, involved in the case of looted gold bars from the 18th-century Prince de Conty shipwreck, are due to stand trial in Brest, western France in May, 2027, reports Le Figaro. Three French nationals in their 70s and 80s, and a Florida couple in their 80s (the author Eleonor (aka Gay) Courter and Philip Courter), are facing charges for criminal conspiracy in the 2018 online sale of gold ingots that are believed to have come from the shipwreck near an island off the coast of Brittany, the Île Belle-Île. Some of the suspects are also accused of laundering stolen goods. The Prince de Conty, a ship of the East India Company, sank during a winter storm in 1746.

The Digest

A memorial mural by aleXsandro Palombo in Milan depicting Hamas’s October 7th kidnapping of Nova music festival-goers Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or in Israel was painted over by city authorities, sparking an outcry. [The Telegraph]

With protests quieting down but not forgotten, dealers return to the Grand Palais for Paris Photo. [ARTnews]

A bronze leg dating to about AD 140, found in a bog in Scotland over 200 years ago and hidden in a storeroom for centuries, is helping researchers re-evaluate the Roman occupation of Scotland, as explored in a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. [The Guardian]

A rediscovered painting by Botticelli, long thought to be merely by the Renaissance master’s workshop, is now on display in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. [Finestre sull’Arte]

Museum workers have started a petition condemning planned cuts to eight positions within Sydney University’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. [The Art Newspaper]

The Kicker

LONDON LETTER TO BLOKE IN THE BEAN. With news that Londoners are getting into the Bean-pushing phenomenon, albeit directed at the city’s Marble Arch designed by John Nash in 1827, you might be thinking, “bean there, done that,” as Ocula reports. But nevertheless, a public listing on the platform Partiful is inviting people to help move the Marble Arch landmark 17.78 cm to the left, or 7 inches, the same distance that Chicagoans recently tried to push Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture in the city’s Millennium Park. The viral stunt didn’t work, what with Kapoor’s sculpture weighing 110 tons. In both cases, however, the goal is to free “the man” or multiple people, stuck inside. “We have been made aware that the top floor of the marble arch [sic] was used for incarceration. People could still be trapped inside,” reads the event description. In a message to Ocula, a representative of the artist Stuart Semple, who is known for disputing with Anish Kapoor in the past over questions like paint color, said that Londoners supported Chicago bean-pushers. In fact, they “are planning to push the Arch to send a clear message that the bloke in the Bean must freed.”