In what might have been an act of art criticism but was actually carelessness, a painting worth over $300,000 ended up in a trashcan at Dusseldorf Airport last month. The painting, by French surrealist Yve Tanguy has been recovered.
While everyone’s heard stories of laptops and handbags left behind at check-in, this story is a bit more unusual: an unnamed businessman on his way to Tel Aviv left the painting at check-in as he rushed to his flight.
He called police immediately after landing, but the cardboard-wrapped painting had disappeared and police were unable to find it. The owner’s nephew made a trip to the airport from Belgium, to help in the search. Police eventually found the package in a recycling bin used by a cleaning contractor at the airport.
While paintings this valuable don’t often go astray accidentally, at least one museum, Boston’s Museum of Bad Art, has acquired a significant part of its collection from dumpster discards and curbside collections.
