Confusion Grows Over Stolen Van Gogh Painting

(Aug. 22) -- The investigation into how a Van Gogh painting was snatched from a Cairo museum has turned into a farce worthy of fictional French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

News of the painting's theft -- known as both the "Poppy Flowers" and "Vase With Flowers" -- broke Saturday when Egypt's minister of culture announced that the $50 million work of art had been "cut from its frame" while on show at the Mahmoud Khalil museum. He added that police were now studying security camera footage and questioning employees.

However, attempts to examine that footage might prove difficult. Because according to one security official, interviewed by Agence France-Presse, both the museum's cameras and its alarms have been out of action for "a long time." "The cameras had not been working for a long time, and neither had the alarm system," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We don't exactly know how long they had been out of order, but it was a long time. The museum officials said they were looking for spare parts [for the security system] but hadn't managed to find them [by the time of the theft]."

The revelation is the latest in a string of embarrassments for authorities. On Saturday evening, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni announced that Egyptian police had arrested two young Italians -- who visited the museum earlier in the day -- at Cairo airport as they attempted to smuggle the oil painting out of the country. However, later in the day he was forced to retract that claim, saying that it had been based an erroneous report from a subordinate. "The information ... came from ... [ministry official] Mohsen Shaalan. Despite Shaalan receiving confirmation that the painting was retrieved, the information was inaccurate," the minister said in a statement, according to Middle East Online.

Exactly what has happened to the two Italians supposedly held by Egyptian police is unclear. Caterina Gioiella, a consular official at Italy's embassy in Cairo, today told news agency ANSA that no Italians had been arrested in connection with the missing painting.

The authorities' bumbling response to the theft -- and the lack of basic safeguards at the gallery -- will surprise many in the art world, as this is the second time that the piece has been snatched from the Khalil Museum. Thieves first made off with the 12-inch by 12-inch canvas in 1978, although it was recovered at an undisclosed location in Kuwait two years later. However, a duplicate was sold for $43 million a year later, sparking speculation that the returned painting was a fake.

Van Gogh's piece -- believed to have been painted in 1887 -- is one of the star attractions in the Khalil Museum's extensive collection of 19th-century French works, which also features paintings by Paul Gauguin, Gustave Courbet, Francois Millet, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and Auguste Rodin. The works were all originally owned by Mahmoud Khalil, an Egyptian parliamentarian in the 1930s.