A number of bronze sculptures, including one of the casts of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” has been stolen from a Dutch museum. Though it is not particularly rare (there exist 74 other casts of the work), it may be worth hundreds of thousands of Euros. This is another in a string of recent bronze thefts. Some bronze busts have recently gone missing from the Pere Lachaise cemetery as well. Tragically, the works may be melted down, as bronze can be quite valuable. There is also speculation that the bronze may be used to make counterfeit ancient coins.
UPDATE:
Two men have been arrested in connection with the thefts. As I suspected, it appears the thieves were only after the bronze to melt it down. They were apparently quite surprised at the level of media attention. Sadly, it appears that one of the legs was sawed off in preparation for melting it down. On the bright side though, perhaps they can use one of the other thinker busts to reconstitute this one.
It calls to mind the famous great theft in the Cabinet des médailles (the main French numismatic museum), in 1831 : thousands of gold coins, some of them unique like the so-called Justinian’s medallion, were looted and melted before the police could find the thieves. There again the thieves had no idea the monetary value of these coins was far greater than the bullion they turned them into.