Cellini’s gold salt cellar was stolen from Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum in 2003 and returned in 2006. The museum identifies it as his only surviving securely attributed goldsmith work: losing it would erase an unusually direct encounter with that side of his art.
It makes our ten for that singularity. Amsterdam ranks higher because two paintings disappeared for much longer. Look at the paired figures and elaborate base: reducing this object to the weight of its gold misses the cultural stakes of the theft.
Source: BMI · 2026 / KHM.
Image: Vassil · CC0. Resized and recompressed; original rights retained.
