Pilfering Public Art

Could there be anything more apprehensible than pilfering Public Art? Well, maybe not if it is crap!  The worst part about stolen public art,  I guess, is not knowing what happened to it. Where do they hide it, for a start. How do they keep it a secret, I’d have to tell someone. What sort of person would go to those lengths.
Manneken Pis, the little weeing boy of Brussels statue, probably takes the honors for being stolen the most. Manneken, however, has always managed to find his way home. At last count he has been stolen a total of seven times over the centuries. The most damaged, I think goes to the Fountain of Neptune Florence.
Australia has had its fair share of public art pilfering, Larry La Trobe the small bronze statue in Melbourne went missing and had to be later replaced as pedestrians went though withdrawal symptoms. In Perth, Western Australia, they had to contend with an angle grinding mad man who continued to remove the head off the Yagan statue (an Aboriginal warrior).
During the war, soldiers removed the fingers off the statues in the fountains in Piazza Navona, Italy, as souvenirs.
In 2005 a 5ft (1.5m) bronze statue of a soldier was taken from Nuneaton’s Riversley Park, England. The following year a life-size statue of Olympic champion Steve Ovett was cut off at the ankles in Sussex City, England. One of his bronze legs, was later discovered smoldering in a pile of ashes. It is believed poor old Ovett was melted down for scrap metal (ew nasty).

The most notorious, though it probably doesn’t count as theft, would have to be Saddam Hussein’s public art demise. After a few hours of slipper slapping and false celebrations the big, bronze, bully finally fell at the feet of his very unhappy civilians. I remember watching and waiting for ages (even doing a ring around so all my friends wouldn’t miss it) for the icon to fall. The statue (or what little remained of it) was dragged through the streets so everyone had a chance to slap it with their shoes. I don’t think anyone cared about that Public Art Pilfering, it had long worn out its used by date.