Sunday, November 21, 2010

Stealing the Mystic Lamb

There is a new, non-fiction thriller on the many thefts of Jan van Eyck's famous Ghent Altarpiece, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.  
Since its completion in 1432 the 12-panel folding Ghent Altarpiece, housed in the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, has been looted in three different wars, burned, dismembered, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, censored, hidden, attacked by iconoclasts, hunted by the Nazis and Napoleon, used as a diplomatic tool, ransomed, rescued by Austrian double-agents, and stolen a total of thirteen times. 

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