Fighting Back as Mexican Churches Are Looted

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Karla Zablusdovsky

Thieves took an early 19th-century painting from the
Church of Santa María Acuexcomac, leaving only the frame.

MEXICO---A picturesque city southeast of Mexico City, Cholula is known for its many churches. It is time to guard the churches of Cholula. Those involved in the thefts clearly have a better sense of how lucrative a business it is. A group of religious-themed 18th-century paintings by the Mexican artist Miguel Cabrera sold for $362,500 in 2010, according to an online listing by Sotheby’s auction house. Art experts say that it is impossible to know how many of the Mexican paintings sold abroad are stolen, but that global interest in Mexican art was piqued in the 1990s, after the “Mexico: Splendors of 30 Centuries” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. [link]