It was cemented centuries ago into a masonry wall, 14 metres up in in the tower of the church of San Salvador in Quintana del Marco (a small municipality in the province of León, Castile and León, Spain). The bust of marcus Aurelius had been found in the narby Roman town of Los Villares. Now the head (only the head) is on its way to new owners. Thieves scaled the wall and removed the head (on an old break) of this local landmark, leaving the rest of it embedded in the wall.But then, as Adalberto Biasiotti points out on MSN:
the big advatage of stealing a head is the easy transport; often burglars have to jump over high walls to reach the statues and the head is stored and moved in a football sack vandal have many times thrown a Roman statue on the ground, cutting off the head the approximate value on the clandestine market is about 5000 euros in Europe if the head reaches the US, the value jumps to twice the amount.'Decapitan el busto romano de Marco Aurelio y se llevan sólo la cabeza', diariodeleon.es, 10th Feb 2013.
Photo: I have edited some pigeon-poo from the photo, I think we should concentrate here on more than the object-centred arguments of self-centred collectors.
1 comment:
Sadly, either a symptom of the economic meltdown in Spain or the work of juveniles. If the Church is in the center of town, one wonders how they got away with it. Probably best to substitute copies for originals, not only because of theft but environmental degradation.
It's also a bit sad this very interesting portrait bust is just now getting the publicity it deserved, but only because it was stolen.
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