Mirviss speculates that some stealing at fairs is more impulse shoplifting than the planned theft of valuable art objects. Last year, for example, a reveler at the Winter Antiques Fair’s Young Collectors’ Night snapped a butterfly—valueless in itself—off a 19th-century cast-iron statue of Cupid on offer in the booth of New York dealer Barbara Israel.

There was one time, Mirviss recalls with amusement, that she wouldn’t have minded having a few pieces filched. At a show in the Midwestern U.S. some 20 years ago, a prominent woman in the community—and a known kleptomaniac—had to be trailed by an assistant who discreetly wrote checks for the objects her boss swiped. “Unfortunately for me,” says Mirviss, “she didn’t like Japanese art.”

"Artful Dodgers" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.