(Tempo di lettura: 6 minuti)
The Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti” (Photograph © by Mirta Aktaia Fava)

On 25 January 2025, the art world awoke to the disconcerting news of the theft of one of the finest and best preserved examples of goldsmithing from antiquity: the wondrous Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti. A masterpiece of the ancient Geto-Dacian civilisation dating back to about 450 B.C. and an icon of Romanian cultural heritage, the helmet was stolen from the Drents Museum in Assen, The Netherlands, where it was on loan from the Historical Treasury of the National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest, by a gang of armed robbers. Three robbers were tracked and arrested by Dutch police few days later. Authorities are looking for a fourth person in connection with the theft. The helmet and other precious artefacts taken in the same heist (three gold bracelets of royal provenance dating back to around 50 B.C, also on loan from Romania for the museum’s Dacia – Empire of Gold and Silver exhibition) have not yet been recovered. 

The sensational theft of the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti and the shocking circumstances in which it took place pose important questions on a number of fronts: museums security, multiple risks involved in itinerant exhibitions, and loans of outstanding pieces of cultural heritage of exceptional artistic, historical, and symbolic value. At the time of writing, the directors of both museums involved (Harry Tupan of the Drents Museum, where the helmet was stolen, and Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu of the National History Museum of Romania ,which granted it on loan along with other important national archaeological finds) have been dismissed. Romania, where the theft of the Golden Helmet has caused outrage, has assembled and sent to The Netherlands a team of forensic police officers and experts to assist with the investigation conducted by Dutch police. The Romanian government has also launched a domestic investigation on the loan of the stolen antiquities and the Ministry of Justice is analysing the terms of the contract with the Dutch Museum with the aim of demanding what Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has defined “unprecedented damages”. Romania believes the items to have been on display without appropriate security arrangements. 

The offer of a reward for the recovery of the stolen artefacts is an option being considered: “I do not rule out turning to international firms specialized in recovering stolen art objects. Nor do I rule out announcing a reward matching the immense value these objects hold for the Romanian people and our national identity” Ciolacu declared on 28 January. The state reward would not be the only one: Alex van Breemen, a Dutch real-estate entrepreneur based in Bucharest who publicly expressed his dismay at the theft, has offered a 100,000 euros reward for any tip that could lead to the recovery of the helmet. All the stolen items are insured, but money is not what is at stake when a country is dispossessed of cultural heritage of enormous rarity and symbolic value. Romania’s nationalist party has called the heist “a direct attack on our national history and identity”.

Museum security – Dynamics of the theft

The heist took place during the night between Friday 24 and Saturday 25 January 2025, one day before the end of the Dacia – Empire of Gold and Silver exhibition. “Around 03:45 am, police received a report of an explosion. At the scene, it became clear that access had been gained to the property by forcing a door with explosives” according to a press release from the Drents Museum. “Some archaeological masterpieces were captured in the property, including the gold Cotofenesti helmet and three Dacian royal bracelets.” The Mayor of Assen, Marco Out, added: “After the events, there was contact with the King’s Commissioner and the Deputy, who came to the scene. Several ministries are involved, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs.” Interpol has also been involved.

Thieves used explosives to force a door and enter the museum, which was not protected by guards during the night. The loan agreement between the two museums is being examined in detail in order to check whether all the security measures supposed to be undertaken were actually implemented. Apparently, the contract envisaged 24-hours security, a clause which appears to have been breached as the Drenst museum was unmanned on the night of the theft.

Ton Cremers, a former Head of Security at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, has criticised the Drents Museum’s security arrangements: “This robbery was absolutely preventable” he declared during an interview with Dutch news broadcaster NRC; he explained that appropriate museum security should envisage multiple layers of protection in order to prevent a quick breach. “If someone blows open the main door, they should not be able to grab the most valuable pieces within two minutes”, he added. 

We note that the Drenst Museum is a provincial institution in a city of only 70,000 inhabitants, which appears an unusual choice for an exhibition containing unique cultural heritage such as the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti.

The heist involving the four gold Dacian artefacts is the third major theft of cultural property in a Dutch museum or gallery in less than five years. A van Gogh, later recovered, was stolen from the Singer Lauren Museum in 2020, while a set of works by Andy Warhol vanished from an art gallery in Oisterwijk in November 2024.

Loans of outstanding pieces of cultural heritage of exceptional artistic, historical and symbolic value

The theft of the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti has, understandably, caused uproar in its home country surrounding not only what are deemed to have been inadequate security measures but also the fact that the item had repeatedly been loaned abroad and, therefore, constantly exposed to the risk of damage, loss or theft in the several countries where it had been displayed. Outside Romania, the theft has reignited the general debate on whether a unique and iconic masterpiece such as the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti should be allowed to leave its home country in the first place. 

It is our opinion that outstanding pieces of cultural heritage of exceptional artistic, historical and symbolic value should be considered unmovable, and that this principle should apply both nationally and internationally in order to preserve their integrity and existence.

Accidental destruction or damage of artworks is not uncommon, and in the vast majority of cases takes place during transportation.  In 2000, an artwork by German-British artist Lucian Freud (a small still life in oil catalogued as “Untitled”, 1960s) due for auction at Sotheby’s was mistakenly placed, still crated, in an area of the warehouse where empty crates are left for disposal. Two workers unknowingly fed the case still containing the painting into a crushing machine. The mistake was discovered only after the artwork failed to arrive at the auction house galleries, prompting staff to review security footage. A painting depicting an interior and a portrait of the artist’s mother painted by Freud had fetched 5.8 million dollars and 3.3 million dollars respectively at auction in the two years preceding the accidental destruction of the still life.

In 1998, “Le Peintre” (1963), a painting by Picasso valued at 1.5 million dollars, was destroyed in an airplane crash when the jet transporting it from New York to Geneva nosedived into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all the 229 passengers and crew members on board.

Other horror stories include King Tut’s Chair damaged during its transfer to the New Giza Museum, an Andy Warhol caught and destroyed by a gust of wind while transported from a gallery to a removal van, two Byzantine columns deliberately smashed by UK custom officers searching for drugs that were not there, and a Rembrandt’s painting from 1640, “Portrait of an Elderly Woman”, slashed while accidentally dropped en route from Moscow to Huston.

With access to international travel now widespread and largely affordable, and advances in technology that allow universal visual access to cultural heritage worldwide in just a few clicks, the reasons ordinarily given in support of the loan of artworks appear weak. We believe that permanent residence for any outstanding pieces of cultural heritage of exceptional artistic, historical and symbolic value should be the rule.

Scenarios

The theft of the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti opens three alternative scenarios:

1) Theft commissioned by a private collector – Provided the helmet reaches the individual who commissioned its theft undamaged, illegal possession by a private collector would constitute the safest possible scenario for the item as it would ensure its continued integrity and proper care, although at the hefty price of no return to the rightful owner, the Republic of Romania;

2) Theft for resale – This would be the riskier scenario for the artefact, as the helmet is too famous and recognisable to be sold in the open market. Failure to sell could induce the individual in possession of the item to melt it in order to sell the gold and dispose of an extremely risky artefact. The helmet, which weighs about 2 pounds or slightly less than 1 kilo, is made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver containing trace amounts of copper and other metals. 

According to Dutch detective Arthur Brand, who is credited with the recovery of the van Gogh stolen from the Singer Lauren Museum in 2020, owing to the short time in which police tracked down the suspects “there is a good chance that the pieces may still be intact”.

3) Return in exchange for a reward – Since the helmet is impossible to sell in the open market and too risky for a collector to retain illegally, a possible scenario is that of a return of the artefact in exchange for a reward, or a ransom.

Should the Golden Helmet of Cotofenesti return in the possession of the Republic of Romania, we believe it would never be loaned abroad again.  

Mirta Aktaia Fava

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