Saliera (Salzstreuer)

Inspired by the theft from a Viennese museum of the “Saliera”, in November 2004 Moussa Kone and Erwin Uhrmann set up the “artbox” in Vienna (modelled on the “babybox”: a receptacle for the anonymous depositing of unwanted babies), offering a way of returning the stolen art work anonymously. While the worldwide search for Benvenuto Cellini’s salt cellar continued, a  “Saliera” was found in the artbox at the beginning of 2005: following pictures of the original, Gerold Fink had made it from modelling clay, gold lacquer and a salt shaker, and placed it in a preserving jar. Fink’s salt cellar was shown in the “Hotspots” exhibition (Essl collection, 2005/2006) and in the “Collection of Stolen Art” exhibition (“Exponatec”, Cologne 2006). The historical Saliera was found again in early 2006 and brought back to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.