An art collection valued at €300 million ($332.2 million) has disappeared in China, according to reports by German outlets
Süddeutsche Zeitung and
Deutschlandfunk. The 342 missing works are by Renate Graf,
Anselm Kiefer, and
Markus Lüpertz, and come from the MAP collection, which belongs to Maria Chen-Tu, a German collector of Taiwanese ancestry.
The works had been on loan to a Chinese businessman who was to organize exhibitions at Chinese museums. The businessman, Ma Yue, has claimed he had been tasked with selling the collection and organizing exhibitions of the works for 10 years. However, his company Bell Art, based in Hamburg, began insolvency proceedings in January. Chen-Tu said she repeatedly requested the collection be returned to her, and alerted Beijing authorities in July.
According to the Deutschlandfunk report, as translated by The Art Newspaper, she told journalists: