One museum employee came to work with a bag each morning; when he left each day after closing, he would have acquired 4 additional bags filled with stolen fine art pieces. The employee worked for the museum for over 20 years before being caught and charged with stealing over 300 individual pieces of fine art.
The worker’s name was Peverett and he was the subject of a new book that exposes one of the British Museum (in London, England) greatest and longest running employee thefts.
Peverett was a former employee of the British Museum’s department of “geography” and “geological” prints. He continued to visit the museum without incident even after leaving the British Museum in 1977.
The first sign of Peverett’s criminal activity was in April 1992 when he attempted to leave the British Museum with 35 prints valued at approximately £5,000. The police began an investigation that would lead to the discovery of over 300 prints belonging to Peverett, many of which had already been sold for profit.
On October 15, 1992, the police executed a search warrant at Peverett’s residence in Kent where they recovered 169 additional prints collected by him and valued at approximately £27,000. After being confronted with the evidence, Peverett admitted to stealing 150 additional prints which were already sold during the time he was employed by the British Museum.
The overall figure of stolen Artworks now exceeds 300 so that was quite a substantial amount. However, the method with which Peverett executed the thefts is in some ways just as shocking as the total number of pieces he had stolen.
According to the author of the book, Peverett used an incredibly simple routine. He would come into the museum with only a small amount of bags. By the time he left he usually had a vast number of bags, sometimes four or more bags filled with prints and drawing etc.
Sometimes he used a razor blade to scratch-off the catalog number from the artwork in order to avoid the complications involved with tracking stolen art before re-selling them. He would also cut the piece into little pieces before selling it as well, therefore making it harder for law enforcement agencies to recover the stolen pieces from the original owners.
The stolen pieces were very quietly sold through many of the shops located in Portobello Market, one of London’s most renowned antique markets for vintage and collectible items.
For many years after the theft, all of the pieces were moving throughout the arts market and no one really knew where they came from (origin).
Once the museum found out about the theft, they began to perform an extensive investigation into the recover of the pieces. They found, as of October 1992, 55 prints had been recovered since the initial thefts.
Unfortunately, many of these pieces have been lost and are most likely now in private collections.
Some of the stolen prints were sold for cash to unknown buyers; this has made it almost impossible to track them down. Experts believe that approximately 95 prints are still unaccounted for.
Peverett passed away back in 2023, many years after anyone had first heard of the scandal.
The author of the book did visit Peverett’s family in Kent while researching his story. They described him as an irresponsible and charming individual; he was passionate about both art and classical music but often acted without much care about the consequences of his actions.
Peverett was involved with more than just art theft.
Once, he burned down his own Porsche in an attempt to defraud an insurance company, according to family records. Despite his ongoing criminal case, his family still said that he continued to receive a pension from the museum where he had worked.
The legal fallout from the theft was complicated.
During his trial Peverett experienced a major breakdown and attempted suicide. He was ultimately placed into a psychiatric ward for 6 weeks before being released. In the end he was given a suspended sentence rather than being sent to prison.
The incident serves as an indicator that (even though museums strive to preserve history), they cannot endure thefts (even though thefts occur)(even without proper security); therefore, museums are aware of the importance of maintaining security when it comes to the protection of their collections (this is why museum security is so tight)(or for this reason museum security is extremely thorough).
The many types of threats that exist against art allow museums the opportunity to develop new strategies for reducing thefts from their collections.
Digitization is one such strategy being used to protect museums from theft (at least in part) by digitizing and posting to the internet the entire collections held by museums.
In fact, just recently, the British Museum stated that all of their collection would be digitally recorded within the next five years (this will provide the world with a complete view of what is owned by the museum, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will lose art to theft through not knowing where it should be).
Lastly, in a case like Peverett’s, where there is still no definitive proof of his many missing artworks, the digitization of museum collections may be the best method available for museums to protect themselves against possible future thefts.
