Police clueless after theft of $1.1 m Chinese porcelain at German museum

 

COLOGNE – There have been no traces of the perpetrators or the stolen items after a million-euro burglary at the Museum for East Asian Art in Cologne, German police said on Thursday.

“The investigation is ongoing, but we have no further clues yet,” a police spokesman said.
Burglars forced open a window at the museum on Tuesday night and stole Chinese porcelain antique worth at least €1 million ($1.1 million).

The unidentified culprits stole nine Chinese vases, plates and bowls from the 16th to 19th centuries from a display case, police said.

An employee of the museum, which remained closed to visitors on Thursday, heard loud noises at the front of the building around midnight and spotted two men, one of whom was said to be carrying a grey, square backpack.

The market for such pieces is very small, said Stefan Charles, a top culture official in Cologne. “There are only a limited number of people who know about them.”

The hope is that, by publishing photos of the stolen pieces and publicizing the theft, the burglars will be unable to sell the pieces, Charles said.

Cologne’s Museum for East Asian Art was founded in 1913. The museum describes itself as the first of its kind in Europe.

Alongside the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, the museum holds one of the most important collections in Germany of art from China, Korea and Japan.