LONDON—Well before midnight on December 15, 2005, CCTV cameras captured images of thieves using a flatbed truck with a crane to steal Henry Moore’s “Reclining Figure,” a $5 million, 2-ton, 11-foot long bronze sculpture. Almost a year later to the day, roughly 30 bronze works by sculptor John T. Scott, originally part of a 2005 retrospective at the New Orleans Museum of Art, were taken from his eastern New Orleans studio. Unfortunately for collectors and artists, this tale is becoming all too common, and it appears to have little to do with art appreciation.
 
While London’s Metropolitan Police then and now don’t discount “Reclining Figure” could have been stolen to order, the prevailing theory is that the $5.3 million work by Moore was melted down into a nearly $10,000 lump of scrap—along with 20 other bronze works stolen during a 6-month period in London. Moore’s work had been moved outside of a secure area for repositioning on the artist’s estate, Perry Green in London. Thieves used this opportunity to drive the truck up next to the sculpture, lift it with a crane and take it. “Bronzes on the grounds of the foundation are regularly moved around,” says Moore Foundation spokesperson Sarah Cockburn. “Sculptures leave the site for exhibitions all over the world or come to the foundation for conservation purposes.”

Officials across the globe believe this to be the motive in many of these thefts, as copper and metal have become more in-demand around the world. In the nearly two years since, other bronze, tin and copper objects have been taken, from electrical wires to coolant lines for refrigeration and air conditioning at construction sites, as well as some prominent and not-so-well-known art works. (It was reported in the London press around the time of the Moore theft that even copper valves on public restroom facilities throughout London are targeted by thieves.) “We have seen a substantial increase and are concerned,” says Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, with the Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit in London. “We are currently engaged in identifying and retrieving stolen works where possible.”

According to Beth Kocher, an art historian with the Art Loss Register (ALR) in New York, more than 300 bronze, aluminum and copper sculptures have been registered with the stolen art database since January 2005. “This is an international epidemic, where public bronze sculptures have been reported missing not only from the U.S., Canada and the U.K., but also in Japan and New Zealand.” Kocher, also head of North American and Australian Registrations for ALR, adds that many other such thefts, however, are most likely not reported to the organization. “I believe that most of these were taken for scrap, as in the case of the head from the sculpture of Ukranian poet Taras Shevchenko turning up in a scrap yard in Canada. I do not believe many are taken to order: There is no ‘Dr. No’ character collecting these sculptures.” ALR maintains a database of art that is reported stolen, as well as a “positive” or pre-loss database where collectors can register their items.

After falling to historic lows in 2002, the market price for copper and other metals experienced a turnaround in June 2003. A mine collapse in October of that year, a miners’ strike in Chile in late 2004 and the increasing demand for building materials in China and the West fostered conditions in the market ripe for skyrocketing prices. In early 2006, copper was trading at roughly $3 a pound, an increase of 200 percent from the price almost two years before. As of August 2007, copper was commanding a price of $7,670 per metric ton [check new market price], or roughly $3.48 per pound. Because copper’s recycling rate is higher than that of any other metal, recyclers pay well for it, which makes it more desirable for thieves.