Chihuly Glass Works Went Missing

[Merlion]

Even glass gets stolen, twice. It is not only bronze.

Chihuly works missing from Florida exhibit (http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_041507WABchihulyartstolenSW.10e17f4d.html)

April 15, 2007, Associated Press

CORAL GABLES, Fla. - Glass sculptures designed by artist Dale Chihuly were taken from an exhibit at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, officials said.

The hand-blown red glass reeds were taken April 11, The Miami Herald reported. They were discovered missing the next morning during an inventory of the exhibit, which contains thousands of pieces and runs until May.

Fairchild officials told the newspaper that the seven to 12 missing reeds are each worth "tens of thousands of dollars." The reeds are about six to seven feet tall. ...

This is the second time that reeds have been taken from the exhibit. There were no arrests made after a December theft at the exhibit but the work was recovered.....

[Merlion]

The missing pieces are now found, in bad shape, see below.

I find this excerpt below interesting.

"the burglars replaced the sculptures with eight red pipes approximately 7-feet tall and that a broken 12-by-12 picture frame and broken glass were left behind at the crime scene had perplexed police..."

Chihuly sculptures recovered; in bad shape (http://cggazette.com/absolutenm/templates/indextemp.aspx?articleid=2859&zoneid=1)

April 18, 2007, About a week after eight pieces of world renowned artist Dale Chihuly’s red “Art Reeds” sculptures were stolen from Fairchild Tropical Garden, a Coral Gables resident happened upon the discarded pieces of glass on April 17 in a vacant lot .... in the Gables

http://cggazette.com/absolutenm/articlefiles/2859-Red-Reeds-(for-web).jpg

Police say that the reeds were found to have been vandalized and in poor condition.

According to a police statement, at around 6 p.m. the Gables resident came across what he believed were the reeds in the vacant lot .... which is located less than two miles from where they were stolen on April 10.....

The sculptures are conservatively estimated to be worth “tens of thousands of dollars” each, according to police.

Police had been searching for the reeds since they were stolen during a heavy thunderstorm .....

Burglars were able to use the inclement weather as cover as they jumped a west fence to get into the gardens. Several odd features of the crime, including the fact that the burglars replaced the sculptures with eight red pipes approximately 7-feet tall and that a broken 12-by-12 picture frame and broken glass were left behind at the crime scene had perplexed police as they tried to located the sculptures and the criminals responsible.

The discovery of the Chihuly reeds brings to a close the second hunt for valuable sculptures in five months ....

In the first incident last year an anonymous source led to the discovery of the sculptures. There were no arrests in that case.