THE THEFT OF A WHEEL OF CHEESE.

THE THEFT OF A WHEEL OF CHEESE. Raf Casert of the Associated Press had an article on Yahoo News about the theft in 1934 of a panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, which was created by the brothers van Eyck and completed in 1432. The Ghent Altarpiece has special meaning for our family because we spent two absorbing hours looking at it, the longest I have spent with one painting. It’s quite wonderful. The story about the theft is remarkable. There was a principal suspect, and he died in the midst of boasting that he was the only person who knew where the panel was. It’s considered possible that the panel is hidden in the cathedral where the Altarpiece is; people in Belgium have been searching for the panel for over 70 years, but there are lots of nooks and crannies in the cathedral. Finally, in what may have been a master stroke by the criminal, on the night the panel was stolen, a giant wheel of cheese was also stolen. The wheel of cheese was considered more valuable than the panel, and the investigation of the theft of the cheese took priority over the investigation of the panel.