I would love to make off with The Awakening and put one piece at a time in my front yard, so it would really look like it was escaping the earth. Slowly. Should I add a pair of child’s pants with attached shoes to the mouth section?
(Click on the second pic for a better view.)
Peter Blume’s The Eternal City.
My reasons are plenty nefarious, but they shall remain my own for now.
*Canaletto’s * Venice paintings from London’s national gallery. All.
Well, being a triptych, the wings fold in, cutting the width in half, so it would be a mere 7’x6’. That’ll slip right under the shirt and I’ll just casually stroll out the front door. 
TV’s “Night Gallery” had a nifty dragon sculpture that, I believe, they rigged to have red glowing eyes and smoke wafting from its nose. It would fit right in with my gargoyle and my ram’s skull candle holder (the eye holes are clear marbles and when you put the votive candle in the recess behind it, the eyes glow.).
The Triumph Of Death without a doubt
Of course, there’s the anti-theft. I’d like to steal back the paintings stolen from the Gardner Museum and return them.
(I have a relative who worked there as a security guard before the theft. Of course was tracked down and interviewed by The Law.)
Michelangelo’s *David *might be fun to have, but it would be a little tough to smuggle out in a tote bag.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston has a portrait of a young man - don’t know who it is or who painted it - but it looks just like the late, lamented local character Billy Ruane. I’d steal it, except the Gardner has suffered enough from art thefts - have pity on them.
In Leipzig, I’d steal the enormous Homage to Beethoven statue by Max Klinger. And put it in my garden, between a lilac and a rose bush. Also, all the other Max Klinger works in the city art museum. I love me some Max Klinger.
http://kulturkompasset.no/max-klinger-in-leipzig-art-museum/
When I started this thread 18 months ago I envisaged it as a game we could play whenever someone visited an art exhibition, museum, etc. It didn’t enter my mind that nobody was going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Eighteen months. Damn.
Anyways, with luck and a favorable wind, things may just be beginning to open up again. On Tuesday, for the first time in a very long time I felt the urge to steal a work of art; or to be precise, to lay siege to, invade and take over Mottesfont, a very large house, so that I can have Maud Russell’s drawing room.
It’s a National Trust property, and we were visiting. We were investigating the house; as we entered the drawing room a guide said hello to us and asked “Are you familiar with Rex Whistler?” (The room was decorated by Rex Whistler, it transpired.)
Now, the drawing room is pretty large and mostly it’s notable for a lot - too much, really - of very intricate and ornate plaster relief work. Here’s a picture of the room - see what I mean?
No, I’m not familiar with Rex Whistler, I said, Thinking, yeah, it’s skillful but y’know what, it’s not really my thing. Actually, I can’t really remember how the conversation went after that. I know the guide pointed out that none of the relief work existed, that it was all a gargantuan trompe l’oeil; but while he was talking I was in a state of disbelief and desperately struggling to take it in. You see the ledge above the right hand lamps in the picture above? Here it is again:
OK, now I’m going to move to the left and closer to the wall:
And again:
And it’s gone. It’s just paint - all of it, all of the huge drawing room in a stately home. Just paint. It’s an absolutely unbelievable achievement. You’ll get a better appreciation if you click on each of the photos to open them up to full size (google photos don’t post in their entirety for some reason).
So I am an instant Rex Whistler convert, and I want this house for myself. But be warned, this stuff f*cks with you head - for the rest of the tour of the house I genuinely was no longer sure that anything actually existed/was what it seemed.
Relevant links:
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