A luxury car can have parts replaced and the vehicle identification number altered. With a new paint job, fraudulent paperwork and new plates, you now have a car that is worth as much or more than the original. But in ten years, a stolen artwork will still look pretty much as it did when it was stolen and will probably appreciate in value. It may have a new frame and need cleaning, but a David Hockney will still be a David Hockney. A thief isn t going to try to alter the artist s name and replace it with an alias.
Art has intrinsic value for what it is.
Therefore, art and other distinctive cultural property are recoverable if we put in place the tools to locate and identify these items when they eventually surface.