Located in the city’s Royal Palace, the Grünes Gewölbe, or Green Vault, was started as a dedicated effort for storing precious metals, art, and artifacts collected by Saxon elector August the Strong, who later become king of Poland from 1723 and 1729.

Five members of a criminal gang broke into the Green Vault in a nighttime heist in November 2019. They were sentenced to six years in prison for stealing the trove of 18th-century jewelry last year.

The group, known as the Remmo Clan, a family crime network operating in Germany, smashed the glass in the display cases using an axe, pocketed 21 pieces of jewelry, and fled within five minutes. The looted Saxon royal artifacts contain more than 4,300 diamonds and is collectively valued at €114 million (about $125 million). The thieves were ultimately sentenced on charges of armed robbery, aggravated arson, and grievous bodily harm.

The Green Vault announced the public reopening of the gems and other relics with an exhibition restored to “almost all its glory”, with the majority of the jewels having been recovered.

“The jewels are presented exactly as they were returned to the [Dresden State Art Collections] — with damage that is barely visible, although in need of restoration,” Marion Ackermann, director general of the Dresden State Art Collections, said in a statement.

Following the heist, the regional court allowed the recovered artifacts to be returned to the museum for display.

“In 2019, criminal clans from Berlin took possession of our cultural heritage,” Saxony Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said in German in a post on X. “But we fought for our treasure!”

Though the breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle decorated in diamonds and a diamond-covered sword were recovered by German law enforcement authorities in late 2022, a large breast bow of Queen Amalie Auguste, made of 611 small diamonds, silver and gold, and an epaulet that includes the so-called Saxon White diamond, is still among the items missing.

An international commission of experts is expected to convene on how to restore the recovered jewels.

The group, which had previously committed a string of high-profile heists, broke into the palace’s Grünes Gewölbe, or Green Vault, in an audacious nighttime heist in November 2019. They were sentenced on charges of armed robbery, aggravated arson, and grievous bodily harm, according to the Dresden prosecutor’s office.

Two of the defendants, who were minors during the heist, were handed juvenile sentences of five years, and four years and four months. Around 40 suspected accomplices to the crime are still wanted by authorities.

The convicted men belong to the “Remmo clan,” an extended family based in Berlin and wanted for numerous ties to organized crime. This past January, defendant Rabieh Remmo told police how the men entered Jewel Room, one of 10 rooms in the vault, through damaged bars on a window. The room held a collection of 3,000 artifacts assembled by August the Strong, an 18th-century prince-elector of the German state of Saxony, as well as a monarch of Poland and Lithuania.

The thieves smashed the glass in the display cases using an axe, pocketed 21 pieces of jewelry, and fled within five minutes. The looted Saxon royal artifacts contain more than 4,300 diamonds and is collectively valued at €114 million (about $124 million).

“I don’t have to tell you how shocked we are by the brutality of this break-in,” Marion Ackermann, general director of the consortium of cultural institutions known as the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, said in a public address shortly after the theft was uncovered. “As you know, the historical and cultural value of this is immeasurable.”

Dresden police have since recovered a “considerable portion” of the historic pieces amid “exploratory talks” with the defendants about a potential plea deal. Some artifacts were found damaged, while others remain missing. In a statement, the presiding judge Andreas Ziegel bemoaned the theft of “one of the oldest and richest treasure collections in the world.”

The Headlines

AUCTION ACTION. On Monday night at its Rockefeller Center headquarters in New York, Christie’s hauled in $98.9 million at a sale of 21st-century art, Angelica Villa reports in ARTnews. It was a fairly low-key affair that “finished without the room buzzing,” Villa writes, but there was one huge result: A 1983 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile), sold for a cool $67 million, making up about two-thirds of the night’s total. It had carried an on-request estimate of around $45 million. A number of women artists had strong performances: A Robin F. Williams painting went for $428,400, a Simone Leigh sculpture for $2.7 million, an Etel Adnan abstraction for $352,800 (more than five times its high estimate!), and a Danielle Mckinney (making her auction debut) for $201,600, ten times its top estimate. For the full report, head to ARTnews.

LEGAL AFFAIRS. Five men involved in the jaw-dropping €113 million ($123.1 millioin) heist of jewels from the Green Vault in Dresden, Germany, in 2019, were sentenced to between about four and six years in prison, DW reports. All five, who have been linked to the Remmo crime family, had confessed to playing a role in the daring burglary as part of a plea deal. Officials have said that they recovered a portion of the material following negotiations with the suspects, but some of it was damaged. The AFP reports that law-enforcement authorities believe that around 40 more people who took part in operation remain at large. A sixth defendant in the case was acquitted after being able to prove that he was getting emergency surgery in Berlin at the time of the heist.

The Digest

An inquiry has been launched by Australian officials into claims that white employees at the APY Art Centre Collective altered the work of Indigenous artists. Last month, the National Gallery of Australia said that it is examining such claims about paintings slated for an upcoming show. [The Sydney Morning Herald]

The Russian fashion designer Slava Zaitsev, whose exuberant clothes drew on his nation’s traditional garb, died on April 30 at 85. In the Soviet era, he was the first designer permitted to operate a label under his own name, Penelope Green reports. [The New York Times]

A 1958 Rolex Milgauss—a model designed for scientists!—sold for $2.5 million at Phillips in Geneva on Saturday. That set a new record for the design, and more than doubled its high estimate. The deep-pocketed winner? It was reportedly someone buying on behalf of Rolex itself. [Bloomberg]

An 1863 Wilhelm Volkhart portrait that was stolen in 1994 from the National Museum in Wrocław, Poland, is now back at the institution. Authorities spotted it on offer at a German auction house, which pulled the lot. [The First News]

Hole singer Courtney Love‘s home features work by Jon Savage and Sam Taylor-Johnson, as well as a 17th-century Flemish verdure tapestry. [Financial Times]

IN THE STUDIO. The sharp-witted, tech-engaged artist Sarah Meyohas opens a show at Marianne Boesky in New York today, and chatted with W magazine. The inventive sculptor Liao Wen has elegant wooden sculptures at Capsule Shanghai’s Frieze New York booth this week, and spoke with the New York Times.

The Kicker

THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF. The indefatigable Kehinde Wiley just unveiled a new exhibition at the Sean Kelly gallery in New York, and gave an interview to the Associated Press about some of his many projects, past and present, including his famed 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama. As he was taking preparatory photos of the former president, Obama apparently took over. “I’m trying to box him into this set of formulaic poses,” Wiley told the AP, “and he’s like, ‘You know what? Stop. Let me take care of this.’ And the pose that you see him in, is when he starts to take over.” [AP]

The Headlines

LEGAL AFFAIRS, PT. 1. In a courtroom in Dresden, Germany, three men accused of stealing some €113.8 million (about $123 million) in treasures from the Green Vault museum in the city in 2019 have admitted to participating in the crime, the Guardian reports. Last month, officials said that they had found many of the purloined items amid “exploratory talks” with the defendants about a possible settlement to the case. The men are expected to receive lighter sentences as a result of the admissions and recoveries. A fourth defendant is slated to admit guilt at a future hearing, a fifth has rejected a deal, and a sixth has reportedly maintained that he has an alibi. Some 40 people are still wanted in the case, according to the paper.

LEGAL AFFAIRS, PT. 2. Artist Peter Doig has been awarded $2.5 million by a federal judge in a bizarre, long-running legal battle over a painting he says he did not paint, the New York Times reports. The backstory: A man said that he bought the painting from a young Doig in the 1970s, when the artist was incarcerated at a prison where he was working in Ontario. The superstar artist has maintained he did not make the work—a desert landscape signed “Pete Doige 76”—and that he was never imprisoned. The prison guard and a Chicago dealer had sued Doig to establish the work’s authenticity and lost in 2016. The same judge has now ruled that the pair, and their lawyer, should have known that they “stood no chance of success” and imposed the monetary sanctions. Doig has said any money he receives will go to support art-making in prisons; the dealer said he still believes the work is authentic and that he may appeal. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that the Detroit Institute of Arts asked a court to dismiss a suit over the ownership of a Vincent van Gogh it is showing in a blockbuster exhibition, arguing that the painting is shielded by a law that protects against the seizure of loaned art.

The Digest

What is believed to be oldest known stone with runic writing was discovered in 2021 during the excavation of a grave near Tyrifjord, Norway, archaeologists said. The runestone, which may date as far back as 2,000 years, will soon go on view at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. [The Associated Press/Bloomberg]

Goldin, a high-end collectibles auction house that has been backed by art-collecting hedge-funder Steve Cohen is in expansion mode: It has a new online marketplace that it hopes will compete with eBay, and it recently opened a vault in Delaware, aiming to smooth the process of storing and selling material. [Bloomberg]

Heike Munder, who has led the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich for 20 years, will step down at the end of June “to take up new professional challenges.” During her tenure, the Swiss institution has hosted retrospectives for Heidi Bucher, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Dorothy Iannone, and many more. [ArtDaily]

A firm called Artex MTF AG is planning to launch a stock market–style platform in the first half of this year that will allow investors to buy and sell shares of high-value artworks. The first piece to be listed has not yet been announced. Prince Wenceslas of Liechtenstein is among the cofounders. [Bloomberg]

At a ceremony on Monday, the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy, gave its lifetime achievement award to actor Kevin Spacey, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct that he has denied. Spacey recently pleaded not guilty in the United Kingdom to charges that include sexual assault and indecent assault. [Hollywood Reporter]

The Kicker

THE VERDICT IS IN. On his website, the singer-songwriter Nick Cave (not to be confused with the artist, though they have met) shared lyrics that a fan apparently generated by asking the A.I. engine Chat GPT to “write a song in the style of Nick Cave.” Cave’s response: “this song is bullshit, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” Tough critic! His comments recall the response of the legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki when he was presented with some A.I.-generated animation way back in 2016: “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” he said. [The Red Hand Files]

The Headlines

ARTIST PHILIP PEARLSTEIN, who forged a path for bracingly realistic figurative painting in the United States in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, died on Saturday at the age of 98, Harrison Jacobs reports in ARTnews. Pearlstein was born in 1924 in Pittsburgh, and studied at what is now Carnegie Mellon University, with a three-year interruption when he was drafted during World War II. At the school, he struck up a friendship with Andy Warhol , and the two moved to New York after graduation. After experiments with Abstract Expressionism and depicting American symbols (like Superman), Pearlstein settled on his mature style in the early 1960s, portraying people, often nude, with unflinching candor. In a 1967 ARTnews interview, he spoke of trying to create when he called “hard realism,” an art that was “sharp, clear, unambiguous.”

LEGAL MATTERS. The descendants a German Jewish banker have filed suit against Japan’s Sompo Holdings, calling for the return of an 1888 Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers painting that the firm purchased for $39.9 million at Christie’s in 1987, the Art Newspaper reports. The suit argues that Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy sold the work in 1934 only because of the threat posed by the Nazi government and that Sompo was “recklessly indifferent” to that fact. A Sompo rep said that it “rejects any allegation of wrongdoing.” Meanwhile, heirs of the German Jewish collector Hedwig Stern have filed suit over another van Gogh that they say was confiscated from him by the Nazis in 1938, Courthouse News reports. They claim that the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold the work around 1972 despite knowing that the work had been looted. The Met and the foundation, which reportedly owns the painting, have not commented.

The Digest

Peru said this weekend that it was running trains to evacuate tourists who were stranded in the ancient city of Machu Picchu amid political turmoil and protests that shuttered many transportation services. Rail trips to and from the site had been suspended on Tuesday. Services are resuming throughout the country. [CNN]

As the trial of six suspects in the daring 2019 Dresden Green Vault heist continues in that German city, officials said that they had recovered in Berlin a “considerable portion” of the jewels and artifacts that were taken, a haul estimated at more than $100 million. “Exploratory talks” with the defense about a settlement led to the finds, they said. [AFP]

On the orders of Pope Francis, the Vatican Museums will return to Greece three fragments of the Parthenon that have been in their collections since the 19th century. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the British Museum has been in talks with Greece about returning the Parthenon marbles that it holds. [The Associated Press and The Washington Post]

Turkish artist Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz criticized Brit Tony Cragg for loaning a work to the soon-to-open Istanbul Modern museum, claiming that civil rights restrictions in the country should have moved him not to do so. Cragg defended the move, saying that “some of the people working in the museum have politically and socially very good intentions.” [The Guardian]

The Hauser & Wirth Institute has released a digital catalogue raisonné of the 256 oil paintings that artist Frank Kline made in the last years of his life, between 1950 and 1962. It is free to peruse. [ArtDaily]

The Kicker

PISSED OFF.Pussy Riot—the Russian art collective known for its astonishingly provocative artistic protests—is the subject of a survey at the Kling & Bang gallery in Reykjavík, Iceland, that was organized by fellow artist Ragnar Kjartansson; his wife, Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir; and Dorothee Kirch. Washington Post critic Sebastian Smeepaid a visit , and highlights in his story a video that has Pussy Rioter Taso Pletner urinating on a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, an action that she repeated in a recent performance at Iceland’s National Theater. Speaking about the group’s methods in an interview, collective member Maria Alyokhina said, “I really think that if you do something in art, you should do it in a way to make all the people of different ages understand it.” [The Washington Post]

Thank you for being here. See you in 24 hours.

The Headlines

‘IS THIS MAN AMERICA’S GREATEST PHOTOGRAPHER?’ That was the question that the magazine American Photographer used to accompany an entire 1982 issue devoted to the Japanese American photographer Hiro, whose surreal and seductive images created some of the defining fashion spreads and advertisements of the postwar era. After a remarkable career, Hiro, who was born Yasuhiro Wakabayashi, has died at 90, the New York Times reports. A protégé of Richard Avedon , Hiro snapped bracingly elegant (and sometimes unusual) images, like an ant atop a red toenail and a woman breathing out a swirling cloud of smoke. “With the pragmatic brilliance of a Renaissance master, American Photographer declared, “Hiro has changed the way photographs look, and with an endlessly inventive technique has changed the way photographers work.”

IT IS A STORY OF SUPERLATIVES. The burglary of the Green Vault in Dresden, Germany, in 2019, has been “described as one of the most costly art heists in history,” Joshua Hammer writes in GQ , and “the ensuing dragnet was one of the largest police operations in postwar German history.” The loot included “a 49-carat cushion-cut stone of unusual radiance and purity”—$1.2 billion has been bandied as the value of the total haul. But it was just one of many brazen thefts to hit Germany in recent years, Hammer reports in an article that is a rollicking overview of the investigation, a deep dive into the Remmo family (some of whose members were convicted of a 2017 theft at the Bode Museum in Berlin, and accused in the Green Vault case), and a mini-profile of Augustus II, who commissioned the storied museum and its contents—which remain missing. The Green Vault’s director, Dirk Syndram , offered this description of the affair: “It was like when you feel totally fit and healthy and someone tells you that you are in the last stage of cancer.”

The Digest

The scholar Ernst van de Wetering, who spent nearly a half-century studying the work of Rembrandt with the Rembrandt Research Project, weighing in on the authenticity (and inauthenticity) of paintings attributed to the master, has died at 83. [The Art Newspaper]

The United States has returned to Thailand 13 Buddhist artifacts that were confiscated by the Manhattan district attorney’s office on the grounds that they had been illegally obtained by the dealer Subhash Kapoor. Thailand is planning an exhibition of the work. Kapoor has been accused of running a gigantic smuggling ring and is standing trial in India. [Bangkok Post]

The recent change in NCAA rules that allows college athletes to be paid in various ways has led to all kinds of endorsements, but it has also allowed some “to show off their creative, artistic sides,” the Associated Press reports. SMU football player Ra-Sun Kazadi, for one, has been able to sell his paintings. [AP]

No one likes to learn that their art has ended up in the trash, but for the Edmonton artist Michael Victoria Moore, it was a relief: she was recently informed that a painting she made, which had been stolen last year, was discovered in a dumpster. The finder actually took it home because she liked it, and one of her friends recognized it as a missing painting she had read a story about. Tally that as a win for journalism. [CBC]

A new online database—Women Who Built Illinois—documents the work of “female architects, engineers, developers, designers, builders, landscape architects, interior designers, and clients” in the Prairie State between 1879 and 1979. The nonprofit group Landmarks Illinois is helming the initiative. [The Edwardsville Intelligencer]

The Okryu Exhibition Hall in Pyongyang, North Korea, is currently hosting an exhibition to celebrate the 74th anniversary of the creation of the Pyongyang University of Fine Arts. [Yonhap]

The Kicker

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE CAREERS. The director and CEO of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Alex Nyerges, has led various museums over 36 years, but he actually started his professional life thinking he would be an archaeologist. “My first paying job was for the Smithsonian Institution, digging out in Eastern Colorado,” Nyerges said in an interview with Blooloop (“the world’s most read news source for visitor attractions professionals”). “Yet, despite having spent 6 to 7 years in the field, I realized at this point that I hated archaeology. I hated dirt. What I really liked was the objects. I was interested in beauty and the history around objects and material culture.” [Blooloop]

Update, 8:45 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Remmo family members have been convicted in the Green Vault heist. They were convicted of a 2017 theft at the Bode Museum in Berlin; the Dresden suspects are awaiting trial.

When German police made the initial three arrests in November, they also released the images of two 21-year-old twins, Abdul Majed Remmo and Mohamed Remmo, who were wanted on charges of robbery and arson. The Guardian’s report, which said that those were the same charges levied against the other three suspects, stated that it was still unclear which Remmo twin was in police custody and which remained at large.

In November 2019, after creating a fire that caused some of the museum’s security systems to fail, thieves entered the Green Vault of Dresden’s Royal Palace, part of the city’s Staatliche Kunstsammlungen consortium, through a ground-floor grilled window and subsequently shattered a glass case with an axe, taking with them at least three 18th-century jewelry sets estimated to be worth some €1 billion (around $1.2 billion). After numerous police raids, authorities are still been unable to locate the stolen jewels.

Last month’s three arrests involved a suspect who was also involved in the theft of a 220-pound commemorative coin, named the “Big Maple Leaf” and estimated to be worth $4.5 million, from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017. That suspect was identified in German media as Wissam Remmo, 23. The Guardian has now identified him as a relative of the two Remmo twins.

The news of the break-in has captivated much of the world, particularly because the low-tech methods that had been used to plunder the objects. Early on a Monday morning in November last year, thieves started a fire at an electricity box that caused some of the museum’s security systems to fail. They then proceed toward the Green Vault of Dresden’s Royal Palace, where security footage shows them entering the museum through a ground floor grilled window and then proceeding toward a glass case, which they shattered with an axe. Police arrived five minutes after alarms sounded, but the thieves had already escaped.

The Green Vault, part of Dresden’s Staatliche Kunstsammlungen consortium, consists of 10 rooms with various glass-encased displays showing some 30,000 jewelry artifacts. The institution’s collection was amassed by Polish king August the Strong in the first half of the 18th century and opened to the public in 1723.

Earlier this year, reports said that the Berlin authorities had investigated four security guards at the museum for failing to “react adequately” during the theft, and in September, authorities raided an internet café and an apartment in Berlin related to the investigation. At the time, police said that as few as seven people might be involved in the heist.

This week’s arrest involves a suspect who was involved in another heist of Berlin’s Bode Museum in March 2017, in which thieves stole a 220-pound commemorative coin, named the “Big Maple Leaf,” that is estimated to be worth $4.5 million. The authorities said that both crimes were connected via the crime syndicate.

In a press conference, Jürgen Schmidt, spokesperson for Dresden state prosecutor, said, “I can confirm that one of the suspects has already been sentenced because of the theft at the Bode Museum.” Because of German privacy laws, officials typically do not identify the names of suspects in ongoing cases, but German media has reported that suspect to be Wissam Remmo, 23, who allegedly has ties to organized crime. (Remmo was sentenced to 4.5 years in connection with the Bode Museum theft, but has not started his sentence as he appealed the ruling.)

Police officials said they had been able to identify the suspects via the camera footage that captured the heist and DNA traces left behind in a getaway car that suspects had burned. The whereabouts of the stolen jewels is still unknown, and investigators said they hope to reclaim them, but there are concerns that the jewels might have already been recut and sold on the black market, according to the Guardian.