Austrian police recover €50m salt cellar by Cellini

Austrian police have recovered a 16th-century salt cellar made by Italian sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. The object was recovered on 20 January buried in a forest near Vienna almost three years after it was stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The item, valued at €50 million, was included in INTERPOL’s poster of most wanted works of art in December 2003.

A failed attempt to extort a ransom by text message from a mobile phone led to the identification and arrest of the suspect, an Austrian national. He had been captured on surveillance camera while buying the phone.

The salt cellar, which is made of ivory, gold and enamel, measures 26cm x 33.5cm.

The first INTERPOL international notice on stolen works of art was published in 1947. INTERPOL has since developed a highly efficient system for circulating information about stolen works of art and cultural heritage in the form of a database accessible to INTERPOL member countries, as well as a more widely available CD-ROM.