Two men posing as tourists walked into a museum in Copenhagen and stole a valuable bust by Auguste Rodin in one of Denmark’s biggest art robberies.
Analysis of CCTV images showed that the pair had visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum a week earlier, possibly to loosen the sculpture from its base and disable its alarm so that they could return to make a quick theft.
The men entered the museum, took the bronze and left in just 12 minutes. The theft took place on July 16, and the details and the men’s images were made public yesterday by police trying to establish their identity. The 25.5cm (10in) bust, The Man with the Broken Nose, from 1863, was valued at $300,000.
“It is terrible. We lost an important work in the collection,” Flemming Friborg, director of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, told the Politiken newspaper. He said that he took full responsibility for the “inexcusable” theft.
Copenhagen police are collaborating with Interpol and Europol on what they believe may be an international operation. A spokesman said: “The perpetrators explored the premises about a week before the theft, and they must have known what they were stealing.”