Super-heist solved for timely exhibit
What do elaborate 18th century European timepieces have to do with Islamic artwork? As it turns out, not much - but that hasn't stopped the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem from hosting a stunning exhibition of venerable clocks and watches firmly in the category of objets d'art - watches that are to your Timex what velvet paintings are to the Mona Lisa.
Jerusalem is glad to have them back, too. The timepieces, representing the personal collection of Sir David Salomons, husband of the museum's founder, were stolen right out of the museum in 1983 in a thriller-worthy caper by Israeli super-thief and watch aficionado Naaman Diller, who snuck alone into the museum one night and made off with the entire collection. The pieces were only recovered three years ago after a dying Diller, hiding in America, confessed to his wife where exactly their cache of exquisite vintage clocks had come from.
"At the time, we had no idea who was responsible for the thefts," says Rachel Hasson, the Museum's artistic director. "After [Diller's death] we were contacted by a lawyer who had been in contact with Diller's widow and was in possession of some of the stolen clocks. We ended up retrieving about 90 of the 100 stolen items."
It's lucky Diller hoarded most of them for himself instead of selling them along and breaking up the collection - many of the watches are the work of the brilliant Swiss horologist Abraham Louis Breguet, who revolutionized watch-making, essentially invented the wristwatch centuries before it became fashionable, and personally designed timepieces for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The Antoinette watch, made of gold and crystal, has had its worth assessed at a cool $30 million, and Naaman's theft has gone down in history as the most damaging heist, measured monetarily, in Israeli history. Hopefully the affair has convinced the museum of the need to keep security systems in tip-top shape.
After you've finished viewing the clocks, which were first re-displayed in July 2009, don't forget to check out the sundials, compasses and telescopes from the 17th to 19th centuries, also included in Salomons' collection, and then spend a couple more hours taking in the art that puts the "Islamic" in "Museum for Islamic Art." The collection, from tilework and ceramics to swords and guns, is among the world's finest.
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