I have always been fascinated with lost works of art, lost pieces of music by the great composers, or other famous objects that were were found where there is reference to from historical text or word of mouth. I just read a recent news clip that told of a lost Brahms aria written for the Duke of Saxony. It turns out the Brahms was his organist. The piece was found by pure luck. Apparently a library or museum had stored many boxes of papers from the duke and when a fire broke out they were all moved. A researcher decided to go through them and among the birthday cards that were sent to the duke was a piece that Brahms had written for him. Sometimes we find things in places that we least expect. This reminds me of the time someone went to the flea market and purchased a painting that they liked. It must have come out of an old barn or something like that, for when they got it home and examined it, they found that a piece of paper was shoved in the back of it. They decided to take it out and see what it was. Low and behold, it was one of a very few of the originals of the Constitution of the United States. Yes there was more than one drawn up. Its value was incredible.

Sometimes what is found has no intrinsic value, but it is very valuable for other reasons. An example of this was the lost photographs that were found in a dusty corner of a museum that prove that German researcher, Ernst Stromer did find a new species of dinosaur. In the beginning of the 20th century Stromer had discovered four new species of dinosaurs. Unfortunately for him, he brought all the proof back to Munich in 1944 and we all know what happened to that city during the end of the war. The city has heavily bombed and everything he brought there was destroyed or lost. He had put all his drawings and papers in the Munich museum. As I said, the photo has no monetary value, but it does show that Stromer did accomplish what he said he did.

Sometimes lost treasures are never seen again. Oh, we know that they existed and there may even be records of them being in institutions at one time, but for one reason or another they were moved or stolen. I guess a good example of this would be objects that were in the museums in Iraq and looted. There are records that show at least what some of the items were, if not most or all of them. They seem to have vanished from the face of the earth. We all know that there are certain types of rich collectors out there that will do anything to get some of these objects and do not care that they are destroying a national heritage. At least when countries get them, they are usually put on view in museums.

Caravaggio was a master Italian painter that began his career about 1600. While he was a great master, he was also a troublemaker and loved to start fights and indeed was even wanted for killing someone in a brawl. One of his great paintings was "The Taking of Christ" and for over 200 years it had disappeared. It seems that this was not a story of theft, but more of losing track of where something had went. It turned out that the painting had been hanging in a monastery and no one realized that they had a great masterpiece on the wall. It was only by luck that an art restorer, who happened to be in the monastery, noticed the painting which was then cleaned, restored and put on view.

One of the biggest art thefts in history occurred when the Nazis gathered up all the art from the countries that they had conquered. It is hard to imagine the scope of what we are talking about. The NAZIs confiscated hundred of thousand of works of art in the form of paintings, sculpture and other precious works. They had a department that was given a mandate by Goring to seize Jewish art collections and other valuable objects in the hands of Jews. It didn't stop there however, if you had the misfortune to have your country invaded by the Germans in World War II, you probable lost all your valuable art treasures along with your treasury. To this day, the great search to recover the stolen objects still goes on. It is hard to know everything that was taken since it was on such a monumental scale.

In 1972 a discovery was made in an ancient Chinese Tomb. A lost work of literature was found. It was "The Lost Art of War" by Sun Tzu II also known as Sun Bin. "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu has become one of the most popular books and it is thought that this new volume may be heading the same way. Could there be other volumes that we don't know about that were written by these ancient geniuses? I guess we will have to wait and see what turns up.

Photo Source: Hiox Free Clipart

One story that I find intriguing is the one that tells of a lady who was driving down a freeway and saw something in the middle of the road. She stopped her car and picked it up and drove away. This was a lady that had never married and was also a musician of sorts. She had found a violin. For the next 11 years of her life she played it from time to time. Did she know that the instrument was a rare Stradivarius? No one knows the answer to this question. When she died the violin was still with her. She had lived with her mother and now both were dead. There was an ad in the Los Angeles Times for the return of a missing violin in 1967 and a reward was posted, but the true owner never heard anything for 27 years. The story doesn't end here though. The next person to get the violin played it for years and finally brought it into a repair shop where the owner couldn't believe his eyes. In front of him was a rare Strad The repairman was so interested in the instrument that he researched it. It seems that many, if not all, of this old Stradivarius violins have names. He poured through a reference book and found a photo of the exact violin he held in his hand. By the way, this violin was named the Alcantara. The repairman traced the instrument to David Margetts, the owner who lost it. When the customer came back in, the repairman handed him a list of lost and stolen Stradivarius violins and at the top of the list was the one he had put in for repair. He was very upset. The entire problem was dumped into the hands of attorneys. It turned out the Stradivarius was really owned by UCLA , who loaned it to Margetts and yes, they got it back.

So you see, there are many things of value out there and some of these things are being lost and some are being found. It is an endless cycle that makes life a little more exciting.