$65m Art Prankster Jailed

BBC News reports that Robert Mang, the man who stole Benvenuto Cellini's sixteenth century gold sculpture Saliera (Salt Cellar) from a glass showcase in Vienna's Art History Museum, has been jailed for four years. He was cleared of threatening to melt down the sixty-five million dollar masterpiece unless a thirteen million dollar ransom was paid. Mang, an alarm systems specialist who described the theft as a prank, hid the sculpture in a wooden case that he buried in a forest north of Vienna. Police recovered the figurine after he turned himself in when friends recognized his image in pictures released by the police. Irish Art