Stolen

An alarming rise in violent robberies on antiques dealers in Portobello Road has spurred them into action to call for better police cover, CCTV cameras and even private security guards.

Two more churches have been hit by thieves in the latest of a series of break-ins targeting medieval monuments and carvings.

Ramraiders have stolen more than 50 silver and jewellery items worth up to £20,000 from an auction house in Worcestershire.

A very rare medieval jug, originally sold at Sotheby’s but then put on display by a Luton museum after a successful appeal to keep it in the UK, has been stolen.

Two suspects have been charged in connection with the theft of 18 Chinese hardstone carvings worth millions of pounds from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on April 13.

CHINESE hardstone carvings worth millions have been stolen from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

TWO Chinese works of art valued at £1.8m have been stolen from Durham University’s Oriental Museum in a night-time raid.

IT survived the Reformation and had been buried in a churchyard for safekeeping before being rediscovered nearly 200 years ago, but this ‘very rare’ medieval reredos panel has now fallen victim to thieves.

AXA Art are offering a substantial reward for the safe recovery of two archaeological fragments – a 5th century BC Persian low relief showing the head of a guard and a marble head dating from the Roman Empire – which were stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts during October 2011.

DETAILS have emerged of a brutal and ruthlessly executed robbery which saw two armed men break into the home of an elderly art dealer in Northern Ireland on January 3.

ANTIQUE and secondhand jewellery valued at £430,000 has been stolen during a break-in at an auction house in south Glasgow following what appears to have been a carefully planned and meticulously timed raid.

A 19th century brass lectern stolen from a church in Wiltshire has emerged at an antiques fair in Romania.

A SPATE of raids between October and December have seen pieces of furniture by Robert Thompson stolen from rural churches in Yorkshire.

THE days of informal scrapping of precious metals such as gold and silver could well be numbered after a new Bill was put before Parliament on November 15 to tackle theft.

TWO years since it launched, the jewellery trade’s anti-crime alert network, SaferGems, has been helping to forge stronger links between the UK’s 43 different police forces.

ONE SaferGems alert featured two men wanted in connection with a jewellery theft at a discount jewellery shop in Spring Bank, Hull. During the incident one offender distracted the jeweller while the other stole jewellery to the value of £2300.

RAMRAIDERS have smashed their way into the Court Barn Museum, home to the Guild of Handicrafts collection, and stolen unique pieces of silver.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

FOURTEEN antiques of ‘significant, cultural and historic value’ have been recovered and two men arrested in connection with three high-profile country house thefts in 2009.