Reposted from the Citizen Times

A large emerald is missing from the Asheville Museum of Science, which reported the gem stolen late last month, more than three weeks after it was last seen. 

On Jan. 24, a museum representative reached out to the Asheville Police Department to report a larceny. Somebody had forcibly stolen an emerald, which the museum valued at $10,000, according to a police report. The museum didn't report the gem stolen until nearly a month after it was last seen. The last known secure date of the emerald, which was previously on display in the museum's gem and mineral collection, was listed as Jan. 1 in the police report.   

The museum provided the Citizen Times with a prepared statement via email, and declined to comment further on Thursday afternoon. In the museum's statement, Executive Director Anna Priest said that the museum hadn't been broken into and that nothing else had been taken. 

"The AMOS gem and mineral collection has immeasurable historical significance and the theft of the emerald is a sad loss," the museum statement reads. "One of the challenges for any museum is the tension between securing works of value while also making sure they’re available for the public to enjoy."

Priest also said that the museum is working to increase security measures. 

Police didn't have any updates regarding the investigation into the reported larceny Thursday. The status of the case was listed as "closed/leads exhausted" on the January incident report. 

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Reposted from The Sacramento Bee

Radicalized individuals — not teams of trained operatives — are the terror threats that most worry federal law enforcement agencies as the calendar turns to 2018.

Combating them is challenging, since many give little indication they’re planning an attack in the first place.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has indicated the FBI considers the most pressing domestic terrorism threats to be homegrown violent extremists radicalized by ISIS and other radical Islamist groups, as well as lone wolf attackers who aren’t connected to any other actors or groups. Cultists, “sovereign citizens” who don’t believe government constraints apply to them and those motivated by racial animus are a lesser but persistent concern, according to the bureau.

“If you look at the numbers, the repetition and the consistency, I think that’s No. 1 by a long stretch,” Heiman said, citing attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, Fort Hood and the recent attacks in New York City. While other attacks happen every year, Heiman said other movements are not as consistent.

Some object to the categories as artificial and counterproductive. “There’s this focus on categorizing ideology, rather than focusing on methodology for committing these acts of violence. It springs from this necessity to categorize in order to distribute resources in an organized way, but we then come to believe those categories are real,” said Michael German, a former FBI official who worked in counterterrorism. “This whole concept of a radical Islam, which includes very different groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah...it has nothing to do with keeping Americans safer.”

Still, while there may be disagreement about the framing, nobody questions that the United States needs to be on the lookout for potential attackers. And the FBI’s view will carry the day when it comes to allocating funds and manpower to the task. Here’s a closer look at how the agency is seeing things.

Homegrown violent extremists

Violent extremists wanting to join foreign fighters in support of ISIS, or those who aspire to attack the United States from within, continue to be at the top of the FBI’s watch list, with the threat amplified by “a surge in terrorist propaganda and training available via the Internet and social networking media,” Wray noted in testimony to a House committee at the end of November. Online recruitment and indoctrination mean that it’s no longer necessary for terrorist organizations to sneak operatives into the country to recruit others and act.

That’s a big change from the environment of a decade ago, Wray said.

In 2017, jihadist attacks claimed the most lives compared to other domestic extremist groups, with five attacks in the U.S. killing 17 people, according to Joshua Freilich, co-creator of the Extremist Crime Database. Figures on deaths attributable to terrorist groups vary slightly, due to differences in the criteria for labeling something a terrorist act. Freilich said his database defines these attacks as ideologically motivated homicides, or “incidents where the offenders – either wholly or partly – committed the attack to further their extremist beliefs.”

Interspersed attacks with comparably low fatalities have become the norm for aggressions committed under the umbrella of radical Islamic groups, according to Heiman, largely because ISIS has overtaken Al-Qaeda in prominence.

“Al-Qaeda was planning these epic, dramatic attacks. You compare that to the Islamic State, and their approach is, ‘Here’s what we’d like, you go out and figure out how to do it,’” Heiman said. “So then you get individuals picking up whatever they can, bats or cars or firearms, without a lot of training in how to get those mass casualties.”

While that means it’s less likely we’ll see repeats of 9/11 with thousands or even hundreds of deaths, attacks by individuals are also much harder to pinpoint, Heiman said.

German, however, sees the depiction of radicalization put forth by the FBI as misleading. He said in most cases it’s far more likely these terrorists are individuals already planning violent action and looking for an ideology to pin it on than it is that they come to their actions through online recruitment. And law enforcement too readily categorizes people of color based on flimsy evidence such as a few internet searches, according to German.

He compared Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter who killed 49 people in 2016 at a gay nightclub who pledged allegiance to ISIS, to James Holmes, the Aurora shooter who killed 12 people in 2012 at a movie screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Mateen’s attack was seen as an obvious ideological attack against gay people, while “no one suggested Holmes was motivated by a hatred for Batman, or those who watch it.”

Lone-wolf attacks

“We are most concerned about the lone offender attacks, primarily shootings, as they have served as the dominant mode for lethal domestic extremist violence,” Wray said in November.

Lone-wolf attacks represent a significant hurdle for law enforcement by their very nature. If an American citizen is planning an attack alone, it’s “almost impossible to detect that, unless they open up about their feelings to family and friends,” Heiman said.

“We might not have as many large-scale attacks, but we have a steady drip of these attacks with one or two actors that come in with a highly destructive weapon, or drive a car into a crowd, and it’s still a significant loss of life,” Heiman said.

The most destructive example of a lone offender in 2017 is Stephen Paddock’s shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people. While Paddock’s motive is still unknown, meaning it hasn’t been classified as a terrorist attack, it’s emblematic of German’s critique of the emphasis placed on these categories. Regardless of whether Paddock was a terrorist or a criminal, his attack was still catastrophic.

Additionally, while mass shootings represent significant loss of life, the numbers still aren’t comparable to the number of homicide deaths constantly occurring, German said. There were about 17,000 homicides in the U.S. in 2016, according to the FBI, and 40 percent of them are unsolved.

Other extremist movements

“Domestic extremist movements collectively pose a steady threat to the United States,” Wray said in November. “We anticipate law enforcement, racial minorities, and the U.S. government will continue to be significant targets for many domestic extremist movements.”

White supremacists, sovereign citizens, black nationalists, radical religious and other cultist groups fall into this grouping. The FBI recently leaked to the public a counterterrorism report that identified a “black identity extremist” threat, saying these extremists were likely to increasingly target police officers over perceived racial injustice. Many – including German – criticized the report’s definition as overly broad and worried it was being used to target nonviolent protestors, such as members of Black Lives Matter.

Far-left domestic extremist groups (which includes black nationalists) have killed eight people in 2017, according to Freilich’s database, while nine people have been killed in attacks by far-right domestic extremist groups (which includes white supremacists and sovereign citizens) — but the FBI has no category for “white identity extremists.”

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Reposted from KCBD.com

Officials with Texas Tech University say security cameras are being installed in undisclosed locations across campus to help authorities keep the students, faculty and staff safe.

The effort is part of a larger security plan from President Lawrence Schovanec, the Texas Tech Police Department and the Student Government Association.

"At Texas Tech, we constantly review all the practices in place that relate to ensuring a safe environment," Schovanec said. "That means we should take advantage of all the technologies that are there.

"It’s part of the culture we want to create here so students would feel, as they go from building to building, as they cross this campus at night, that there are measures in place to ensure they can do that without feeling threatened or worried."

The security cameras are part of a continuing initiative to increase automated campus safety, as recommended by a committee composed of Texas Tech officials and student representatives.

"For the Texas Tech Police Department, the safety and security of the campus community is paramount," said Texas Tech Police Chief Kyle Bonath. "We are pleased to work with the president and the Student Government Association to protect the community we serve."

Officials say additional cameras will be installed in the near future. 

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Reposted from VV Daily Press

Caretakers of the California Route 66 Museum spent most of the morning wiping away tears and cleaning up broken glass after the popular tourist attraction was broken into.

Museum President Susan Bridges and her staff watched in disbelief as a security monitor recording showed a man smashing glass cabinets, overturning displays and stealing vintage artifacts and clothing inside the museum located on D Street in Victorville.

Bridges said the camera also caught the suspect breaking into the museum, stealing a “vintage and empty” cash register; leaving the building and returning later to “damage and steal” property.

“He was inside for about 10 minutes and did about $30,000 in damage,” Bridges told the Daily Press Monday. “It’s going to cost about $5,000 just to replace the glass. We’re going to be closed for at least a week so we can get everything back in order.”

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested Roy Fonder after he was found with stolen items and a crowbar near the museum in Victorville. The 25-year-old Fonder, who matched the description of the suspect on the surveillance video, was later booked at High Desert Detention Center on suspicion of burglary and vandalism, Sheriff’s spokeswoman Mara Rodriguez reported.

Most of the stolen property has been recovered and the majority of the 4,500-square-foot museum was left untouched during the break in. But the scale model of Hulaville, six glass cabinets, the front door and numerous antique cars, trains and figurines were damaged in the break-in, Bridges said.

“He really did a number on Hulaville, but I saved the bottles,” said museum docent Bill Lamb, as he worked to restore the model and find missing pieces that had been scattered throughout the building. “You can replace glass, but you can’t replace history.”

Bridges, who said she was alerted to the break-in by Hi Desert Alarm just before 2 a.m. Monday, remarked that deputies “seemed to be heartbroken” by what they found when they arrived at the museum.

“This museum is part of who we all are,” Bridges said. “It holds so many memories and artifacts of Route 66 and the High Desert. I can see how anyone who lives here would be affected.”

Bridges said she is pleading with the public to “stop calling the museum” to inquire about the damage and stolen property.

“We’ve been getting calls from the High Desert and all over the country,” Bridges said. “We appreciate the love and support from all of our friends around the world, but we’re swamped trying to put everything back together. We’ll keep everyone updated on Facebook, Instagram and our website.”

The museum team is working hard to reopen the museum so they can serve “the army of Brazilian and Polish tourists” who are currently on vacation. Every year, the museum welcomes thousands of guests from Europe, Asia, South America and other places around the world, Bridges said.

Air Force veteran and museum docent Lou Tyson, 70, told the Daily Press his “childhood” hit him “square in the face” when he first walked through the doors of the museum.

“I was infuriated when I found out what happened here,” said Tyson, as the original “Hula Girl” cutout looked down on him. “The museum is my home-away-from-home, so this break-in makes me feel violated.”

For donation and general information, visit www.califrt66museum.org or www.facebook.com/Rte66Museum. The museum is located at 16825 D St. in Victorville.

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Reposted from The Art Newspaper

The rising water level of the Seine has resulted in the Musée du Louvre closing the lower level of its department of Islamic Arts until Sunday (28 January) as a “preventive measure” from flood damage, according to a spokeswoman for the museum. “But there is no evacuation of the works at this stage,” she says. The spokesman says that opening hours remain unchanged. The temporarily closed area is 2,800 sq. m; the entire museum measures 73,000 sq. m. The ​department of ​Islamic Arts​ was inaugurated in 2012 and designed by the architects Rudy Ricciotti and Mario Bellini.

The decision to implement the Plan de Protection Contre les Inondations (PPCI; protection plan against flooding) was taken yesterday after the Seine reached 5.12m above its normal level. The PPCI was set up in 2002 after the police headquarters informed the Louvre that works from its collection could be at risk from floods. The PPCI comprises a “risk prevention cell”, observing the daily level and fluctuations of the Seine by firefighters and the creation of files indexing works that would need to be moved to higher levels of the museum.

Concern is so great that last month construction of a preservation site began in Liévin, northern France, that will shelter 152,000 works belonging to the Louvre that are currently housed in an area that is at risk of flooding. In June 2016, the Louvre closed for four days after the Seine's level rose to 6m in order to evacuate 35,000 works to a higher level.

The Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie have also launched their PPCI. The Orsay is closing at 6pm this evening, as opposed to at 9.45pm (Thursday is the museum's late evening) and a dance that was scheduled during the Dégas exhibition has been postponed until 8 February.

UPDATE (25 January): The Petit Palais has begun moving 5,000 works from its reserves. "We started bringing them up yesterday morning as a preventative measure and they are installed on the ground floor of our permanent collection," says a museum spokeswoman. She adds that the majority of works, along with those of other museums belonging to the City of Paris, are kept in the suburbs. "The flood in June 2016 enabled us to be operational and very well organised very quickly," she says.

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The Donald Peterson Student Travel Award Subcommittee invites applications from archival science students and recent graduates of archival programs.  The award subsidizes travel to the SAA Annual Meeting for students presenting research or actively participating in an SAA-sponsored committee, section, or roundtable.

Application details are below. The application deadline is February 28, 2018. Applications will only be accepted online.  If you have any questions regarding the award or the application process, please contact Veronica Denison, Donald Peterson Student Travel Award Committee Chair, at vdenison@alaska.edu.

Purpose and Criteria for Selection

Established in 2005, this award supports students and recent graduates from graduate archival programs within North America to attend SAA’s Annual Meeting. The goal of the scholarship is to stimulate greater participation in the activities of SAA by students and recent graduates. This participation must include either a presentation of research during the Annual Meeting or active participation in an SAA-sponsored committee, section, or roundtable.

Eligibility

Awarded to an SAA member in good standing who is currently enrolled in an archival education program or who graduated from an archival education program in the previous calendar year. Applications are evaluated based on the merits of the applicant’s essay and letters of recommendation.

Sponsor and Funding

The Society of American Archivists, in honor of Donald Peterson (1908-1999), New York lawyer and philatelist, whose deep appreciation of world history and preservation developed early through his stamp collecting and held true throughout his life.

Prize

Up to $1,000 in support of registration, travel, and accommodation expenses associated with the SAA Annual Meeting.

First Awarded

2006

Application Information and Documentation

Click here to preview the application and/or to apply. All applications must be submitted online and include the following:  

1. A 500-word essay describing the applicant's career goals and potential impact on the archival profession.
   
   
2. Unofficial transcript to verify student status or copy of graduate diploma.
   
   
3. Two letters of recommendation from individuals having definite knowledge of the applicant's qualifications.

Application Deadline

February 28, 2018

Reposted from Newsweek

In a new chapter of the ongoing saga of Hobby Lobby’s smuggling of Iraqi religious artifacts, the arts and crafts emporium surrendered 245 objects to the United States government, according to court documents.

Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. voluntarily turned over the artifacts to federal prosecutors in New York on January 17, according to Long Island Business News. This brings the total number of artifacts surrendered so far to 3,839. Hobby Lobby had previously agreed to turn over 5,500.

In July 2017, Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine for smuggling religious artifacts out of Iraq, including thousands of ancient cuneiform tablets deliberately mislabeled as tile samples, according to The New York Times.

The store's evangelical Christian owners spent $1.6 million on the artifacts in December of 2010, even after a cultural property law expert that the business itself had retained warned that such artifacts might have been looted, and that without proper verification they could be seized by United States Customs and Border Protection. Nevertheless, according to a press statement from the United States Justice Department, Hobby Lobby persisted:

The acquisition of the Artifacts was fraught with red flags. For example, Hobby Lobby received conflicting information where the Artifacts had been stored prior to the inspection in the UAE. Further, when the Artifacts were presented for inspection to Hobby Lobby’s president and consultant in July 2010, they were displayed informally. In addition, Hobby Lobby representatives had not met or communicated with the dealer who purportedly owned the Artifacts, nor did they pay him for the Artifacts. Rather, following instructions from another dealer, Hobby Lobby wired payment for the Artifacts to seven personal bank accounts held in the names of other individuals.

The artifacts themselves include around 450 ancient cuneiform tablets and around 3,000 clay bullae, or inscribed seals, according to court documents from the 2017 civil complaint. Cuneiform is among the world's oldest known systems of writing, believed to have originated in ancient Mesopotamia. 

A media relations representative for Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. issued the following statement to

Newsweek

:

The 245 artifacts were part of the same transaction that was the subject of Hobby Lobby's settlement with the government in July 2017. At the time of the settlement, the artifacts could not be located. Hobby Lobby agreed that if they were located, the company would turn them over to the government. The artifacts were subsequently located and turned over.

Hobby Lobby President Steve Green owns one of the largest collections of religious artifacts anywhere in the world, having been actively collecting various Middle Eastern antiquities since 2009, according to Long Island Business News. He was recently responsible for the unveiling of a Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Some of the smuggled Iraqi artifacts would have been intended for that museum.

The federal government became suspicious of Green's collection in 2011, when U.S. customs opened FedEx packages that had been declared as "'hand made [sic] clay tiles (sample)' manufactured in Turkey," according to the Justice Department.

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Reposted from Western Museums Association

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) is a division of the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The goal of IARC is to bridge the divide between creativity and scholarship by supporting initiatives and projects in Native American studies, art history, and creative expression that illuminate the intersections of the social sciences, humanities, and arts.

The IARC recently released guidelines to ensure successful museum and community collaborations. There are two sets of guidelines: 1) Community + Museum Collaboration and 2) Museum + Community Collaboration.

These guidelines were developed over a three-year period of collaboration between Native and non-Native museum professionals, cultural leaders and artists. The Community + Museum Collaboration guidelines are intended as a resource for community members who are working in collaboration with museums. The Museum + Community Collaboration guidelines are a resource for museums that are looking to collaborate with a source community. This is not a set of rules; instead, it offers ideas to consider when working with museums and source communities.

This project began with the desire to set the record straight. Source communities can work with museums to correct and add to the museum record. According to Jim Enote, A:shiwi A:wan Museum & Heritage Center, “The idea of bringing source communities together with collections is the right thing to do. The idea of building collaborations between communities and museums and their collections was a new level of engagement. And this was part of the essence of building our guidelines for communities to work with collections.” This work is relevant for communities because they can learn more about their identity and heritage through museum collections.

These guidelines were created with the belief that museums should be thinking about how to bring life to objects by allowing them to return or reenage with their source. The guidelines create a platform that offers museums and communities an opportunity to negotiate the best approach to achieve true collaboration.

The Guidelines for Collaboration are an excellent resource for communities that want to work with museums and museums that want to work with communities. These resources provide an opportunity for true collaboration and two-way learning. 

To learn more about this innovative project, download the guidelines, and view case studies visit the Guidelines for Collaboration website

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Reposted from DMagazine

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts didn't think a police report was necessary when Irby Pace's work went missing. His Dallas gallerist disagrees.

When Irby Pace found out his art was stolen from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, he was deflated. The hijacked stereo cards had been a challenge to craft. Pace liked the fresh way they allowed viewers engage with his work. Plus, his subjects — vibrantly colored smoke clouds — looked super dope in 3D.

Now he’d have to start over.

He posted the news to his private social media accounts: “Some of my art was stolen from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts [fuming emoji, red emoji]” and added a doctored screenshot from the The Thomas Crown Affair.

As status updates go, it was simple and funny. Unless, of course, you’re the MMoFA. They weren’t thrilled with the shout-out. Due to the pieces’ scale and market price, they considered the whole thing a fender-bender of sorts — and they’d really rather nobody talk about it. To Curator of Art Jennifer Jankauskas, it didn’t merit a call to the cops.

“It’s not like a Monet got stolen,” she said in an interview. “The necessity of a police report doesn’t seem to make sense.”

Plus, Jankauskas told me, Pace’s work would not have been sellable after the exhibition, due to general wear and tear on the materials during the show’s run.

What followed was a charged exchange, one that would deal with free speech, the value of art, and the power politics between institutions and the artists they showcase. It also spurred other questions: Is successful interactive art less valuable due to material degradation, or more valuable due to its high level of engagement?

Pace’s gallerist, Ree Willaford of Galleri Urbane Marfa + Dallas, said that Pace wanted that human interaction, that DNA on the work. And besides: “Those could have been artist proofs,” she says from her Dallas showroom. “That’s not for us to decide. We all know Rauschenbergs don’t hold up well, but we’d all take one!”

“And it was supposed to be kept safe anyway, in any institution,” she says. “Whether it’s a gallery or museum.”

 Irby was teaching a class at Troy University when he saw three missed calls. A week had passed since the theft and Pace had kind of found peace with the whole thing.

“How mad can you be when somebody loved [the work] so much they risked whatever they could have risked to steal it?” he asked.

Besides, now his stereo cards are in the canon of Art Stolen from Museums, which carries its own panache. And nobody can take that from him, right?

He checked the missed calls and rang the museum back. They wanted to settle up, name a price and close the loop with the artist. The press had started sniffing around and they needed this thing resolved. Once a monetary agreement was reached, they had a few more demands.

“They asked me not to make any social media postings, they asked me why I made any social media postings, and then they dictated that I need to go onto social media and explain that the thing has been resolved,” said Pace.

In a follow-up email, he was asked to stop giving information to reporters and to try and kill the story.

By the end of it, Pace felt censored, used and insulted.

“I was told that my artwork, because of the nature of it and the size of it, isn’t as important as the Edward Hoppers or other permanent collection work that it would be associated with. And what would validate a proper comment or investigation of theft.” 

Questions about logistics enter here, too. Does additional oversight need to be put into a space where the public directly handles the art? And if so, who decides that? And if work is damaged, broken or lost to theft, how do its custodians talk about that with the public —or can they sweep it under the rug and silence the artist?

Surveying the museum landscape today, the public’s appetite for interactive artwork is only growing. As these institutions move away from Old Paintings on Walls, they’re being challenged to consider new rules and protocols. Meanwhile artists like Pace are left assuming more risk and murkier definitions of value. Should artists’ work leave a museum less valuable than when it entered it?

Irby Pace moved his family to Montgomery, Alabama in 2014 to accept a teaching position at nearby Troy. They left behind a Dallas arts community wherein Pace’s work had been quickly noticed. For his 2012 MFA show he made national headlines by ripping abandoned pictures of strangers off Apple store devices, blowing them up and calling it art. He presciently captured the cultural moment just before “selfie” happened. He also got tangled up with Apple in a dispute over privacy rights, freedom of speech and appropriation in a time of rapidly evolving technology.

The Dallas Observer awarded him “Best Art Heist” for the affair. That irony isn’t lost on Pace. “It’s kind of like a climatic response to that,” he said about the theft and laughed. “You can’t be THAT mad.”

But again, that was before the museum’s phone call.

Pace’s stolen pieces were stereo card images. Shot on a special camera with two lenses, set at different angles, his work was laser cut and hand assembled over five months. It is the only set that exists. To use it, visitors place the cards into an antique viewer from the early 1900s and observe a three-dimensional illusion of his photography. It’s a fun gimmick that was popular more than one hundred years ago — another era when escapism was all the rage.

Their intimate size was part of what attracted Pace to the project. His big, blown up photographs were getting snatched up back at the gallery in Dallas and he’d have a few in this show as well. But he wanted to play with scale and guide viewers through his trippy environments in a more personal way. He chalked it up as a positive. The curators called the cards “minimal pieces” compared to the big guys on the wall and noted that they were replaceable.

Willaford again isn’t so sure this logic shakes out. She starts telling a story about her friend who ran a Houston gallery back in the ‘70s, who “sold (Donald) Judds when nobody wanted them.” For one fair in Germany, her friend carried the whole show in her purse. Cy Twombly had painted an entire series on popsicle sticks. “How much are those worth today?” asks Willaford. “That day they weren’t that valuable.”

While neither party is naming the settled payment price, both agree it’s enough to cover the material costs of creating a new set of slides. Pace may start a new series, but he won’t attempt to recreate the ones he’s lost.

“I’ll probably let that series be stolen and move onto the next one.” he says. Besides, he’s already considering other ways to bring his work to life, like large-scale holograms that dominate a showroom. And that seems like a great idea, one that’s really tough to steal. 

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Reposted from CNN

In a plot worthy of a Hollywood heist film, thieves mingled with other visitors to an exhibition in Venice on Wednesday before brazenly making off with gems of "indisputably elevated value," the canal city's police chief said.

The working theory being developed by investigating officers suggests that at least two people entered the Doge's Palace -- a popular tourist spot in Venice where a selection of Indian jewelry from the Qatari royal collection was on display to the public.

One suspect acted as lookout while the other grabbed the jewels from a display case, police believe.

Venice Police Chief Vito Danilo Gagliardi said that the stolen items were a pair of earrings and a brooch made of diamonds, gold and platinum. The pieces -- owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani -- were snatched in the bold daytime robbery on the last day of the exhibit. 

A preliminary investigation revealed that the pair were able to delay the alarm system for one minute so it wasn't triggered until the thieves were making their escape, Gagliardi said. He described the culprits as "skilled."

"They were certainly well prepared and hit in a targeted way," Gagliardi said.

The police chief suggested the jewels would be difficult to sell on because of their international recognition and might, therefore, be disassembled and sold separately.

Gagliardi earlier told Reuters that the jewels had a customs value of 30,000 euros (around $31,000), but indicated that the actual worth is more likely "a few million euros."

A Venice police spokesman told CNN that the stolen pieces were "of great value" but would not provide an exact estimate of their worth.

The spokesman added that authorities arrived at the scene at 10:17 a.m. (3:17 a.m. ET) on Wednesday after being alerted by the head of security, who told them that "some jewels had gone missing."

In a press release, the Doge's Palace confirmed the theft of "two objects" from the Al Thani Collection. The objects were described as "recently made and of marginal value compared to other jewels of greater historical value."

"Thanks to the timely intervention of the security apparatus operating inside the exhibition halls, and whose definition was shared from the outset with the Venice Police Headquarters, the Civic Museums Foundation was able to provide all the law enforcement agencies the elements necessary for a rapid solution of the ongoing investigation," the statement continued.

The exhibition displayed over 270 pieces of Indian Mughal jewelry from the 16th to the 20th century, according to the Doge's Palace website.

The exhibition closed on schedule.

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