“Worthless” Priceless Salt Cellar
We’ve talked before about the trap that art thieves can sometimes fall into of having an incredibly valuable work in their possession but being unable to cash in on that value, well this story takes that to the extreme.
Benvenuto Cellini
First I want to give some background on the man behind the absolutely exquisite piece that’s at the center of today’s case. Cellini was born on November 3, 1500 in Florence, Italy to a father who was a musician and built musical instruments. As a child Cellini was pushed towards music because of his father’s job but when he was 15 his family reluctantly agreed to let him get an apprenticeship with a goldsmith. He worked with them for a few months before getting banished from Florence for fighting in the streets so he relocated to Sienna and continued working with another goldsmith to hone his craft. At 19 he moved to Rome and this is where his career really took off.
His first works in Rome were a silver casket, silver candlesticks, and a vase for the Bishop of Salamanca and his work was so good that it won him the approval of Pope Clement VII. Another one of his celebrated works in Rome was a gold medallion of Lida and the Swan. A few years of living in Rome and Cellini decided to move back to his hometown of Florence (I guess they un-banished him). Once there he devoted himself to crafting metal and created many sculptures including Hercules and the Nemean Lion and Atlas Supporting the Sphere. He also has kind of an unhinged criminal history but I think I’ll save that for another article.
He moved to France for a while, where notably he worked on massive golden gates for the Chateau de Fontainebleau, but towards the end of his life he moved again back to Florence where he was commissioned to create what is now his most famous sculpture, Perseus with the Head of Medusa.
While Cellini was living in France he made the object that we’ll be focused on today, a stunning solid gold, enamel, and ivory salt cellar (also called a saliera). He carved it between 1540-1543 for King Frances I of France. It’s an extremely intricate carving featuring the sea god Neptune and Mother Earth sitting opposite each other with their legs intertwined. On the top is a ship which is used to hold salt, a triumphal gate to hold the pepper, and underneath are 9 ivory balls that allow the saliera to roll in whatever direction you want. A feat of beauty and engineering! It’s the only piece of Cellini’s goldsmith work that has survived to today. Oh also, it’s worth between €50 to €100 million. Cool cool cool. Now that we’re all on the same page and know a bit about Cellini let’s get into it.
The Theft
This saliera arrived at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna from the Habsburg Collection in the 19th century and that’s where it’s lived since then. In 2003 the museum was covered in scaffolding because of some repairs being done. At around 4:00am on the morning of May 11, 2003 a security alarm went off in the museum, I was so happy this museum had a security system, but the security guard on duty that night just turned off the alarm dismissing it as a glitch in a system and never checked out the gallery. If he had, he would have found a smashed window where the thief had climbed up the scaffolding, run into the gallery, grabbed the saliera, and made a hasty exit. It seems like they knew exactly what they wanted and they were in and out into the early morning without a trace.
Because the security guard never investigated the source of the alarm, it was hours before anyone even noticed this incredibly valuable and iconic item was gone. Three years passed with no developments in the case. Even though Interpol was called and they released the massive value of the salt cellar to the press, no progress was made.
For the thief he originally thought he’d just pulled off the perfect crime, it was super simple to get the salt cellar, and he thought now it would be equally simple to sell it and make off with the money. But he quickly realized that this second part of the plan was going to be much more difficult than he anticipated. A piece like this is just about impossible to sell, there is literally only one of these in the entire world and people know what it looks like. The second he’d try to sell it, a collector or auction house would immediately know it’s stolen. So the thief learned that this basically priceless item was in fact unsellable and worthless to him.
Finally, a break in the case came in January of 2006 when security footage turned up (where had it been all this time??) and they were able to identify the thief as Robert Mang. Mang was actually a specialist in alarm systems interestingly enough and he ended up coming forward after media attention on the case. He led police to a wooded area north of Vienna where he had buried the saliera in a lead box. Mang ended up being sentenced to four years in prison for the theft.
Insane to steal something and have it in your possession worth hundreds of millions of euros but not be able to access any of that money. This one really hammers home the issues that art thieves run into, so I would recommend trying a different get rich quick scheme if you’re thinking through your options.
Works Cited
“Cellini’s “Worthless” $60 million Salt Cellar”. Stolen Cavalier. 2014. https://stolencavalier.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/cellinis-worthless-60-million-salt-cellar/
Lewis, Jim. “Cellini’s Stellar Cellar”. Slate. 2003. https://slate.com/culture/2003/05/cellini-s-worthless-saltcellar.html