On September 11, 2023, the Munich District Court sentenced a 30-year-old man to a sentence of 1 year and 9 months for three cases of illegal trafficking of cultural property and one attempted case. The court also ordered to pay back €60,617.90.
The defendant had been employed as a technical staff member in the collections management department of the Deutschen Museums in Munich from May 2016 to April 2018. During his employment, he had access to the storage area where paintings were kept.
During this time, the defendant swapped the painting "The Fairy Tale of the Frog King" by Franz von Stuck with a forgery and offered the original for auction at a Munich auction house. Deceptively, he claimed that the painting had been inherited from his great-grandparents or grandparents. The painting was auctioned for the price of €70,000 to a gallery in Switzerland. After deducting auction fees, the defendant received €49,127.40 in cash.
Furthermore, the defendant also stole the paintings "The Wine Tasting" by Eduard von Grützner and "Two Girls Gathering Wood in the Mountains" by Franz von Defregger from the museum's storage. He auctioned one of the paintings and sold the other directly to the auction house. In the first case, he received €4,490.50, and in the second case, he was paid €7,000.
In another case, the defendant stole the painting "Dirndl" by Franz von Defregger from the museum's storage and attempted to auction it through another Munich auction house.
Image: Franz von Stuck "Es war einmal", 1891