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犯罪与劫案
1934年4月10日 · 根特圣巴夫主教座堂
艺术品盗窃状态: 未破
详细档案目前仅提供英文版本。
图片: photograph is by Max Friedländer (1867-1958) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
1 millionBelgian francs demanded in ransom; the panel has never been found
The Ghent Altarpiece, completed in 1432, is one of the most famous works of art in Europe and one of the most frequently stolen. Parts of it were carried off by French revolutionary troops, sold to a Berlin museum and returned after the First World War under the Treaty of Versailles. The lower left panel had been sawn through its thickness in Berlin, so that the front with the judges and the back with John the Baptist could hang side by side. In 1934 the chapel was barely guarded at night.
During the night of 10–11 April 1934 both halves of that panel were lifted out of their frame. In the empty space hung a note in French: 'Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles'. At the end of April Bishop Coppieters received a letter demanding one million francs. The writer, who signed himself 'D.U.A.', sent a left-luggage ticket for Brussels North station: in the luggage office lay the grisaille with John the Baptist. A correspondence lasting into October followed; the diocese paid a small advance, but no exchange took place.
On 25 November 1934 Arsène Goedertier, a stockbroker from Wetteren, suffered a heart attack after a political meeting in Dendermonde. He told his lawyer that he alone knew where the altarpiece panel was and that the papers were in his study. There carbon copies of the ransom letters were found, together with an unsent letter stating that the panel rested in a place where nobody could remove it without attracting attention. The lawyer told the police only a month later, and the investigation of the time is regarded as careless.
Whether Goedertier was the thief, acted alone or merely wrote the letters has never been established; he was not short of money, and a panel a metre and a half high is hard to carry off alone. Between 1939 and 1945 the restorer Jef Van der Veken painted a copy, which now hangs in the altarpiece. Since then dozens of places have been searched, from the cathedral itself to churches, graves and cellars in and around Ghent, without result. The Ghent police keep the file open and still follow up new tips.