Oscar Wilde's stolen ring recovered by 'art detective'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A stolen ring once belonging to the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered nearly 20 years after it was stolen from Britain’s Oxford University, according to reports.
Arthur Brand, a Dutchman nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” for successfully recovering high-profile stolen artworks, used his connections in the underworld to track down Wilde’s ring, AFP reported.
The ring, which Wilde gave to a fellow student in 1876, was stolen during a burglary in 2002 at Oxford’s Magdalen College. At the time, the ring was worth about $45,000.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The stolen ring that had belonged to Oscar Wilde was recovered some 20 years later. (Getty, File)
The burglary remained unsolved for years, with fears that the ring – made from 18-carat gold – may have been melted down.
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“We had given up hope of seeing it again,” Mark Blandford-Baker, Magdalen College’s home bursar, told AFP.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He said the university was “very pleased to have back a stolen item that forms part of a collection relating to one of our more famous alumni.”
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“[W]e are extremely grateful to Arthur Brand for finding it and returning it to us,” Blandford-Baker said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The ring is set to make its return to Magdalen College in a formal ceremony on Dec. 4.