ARTS : Thieves Take $500,000 Scarab Vase

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A vase valued at $500,000 and considered one of the best-known pieces of ceramics in the world has been stolen from a museum here.

“It’s the Mona Lisa of ceramics,” Ronald Kuchta, art director of the Everson Museum, said of the Scarab Vase, made in 1910 by potter Adelaide Alsop Robineau of Syracuse. The Scarab Vase was apparently removed from the Everson’s Falcone Gallery between 7:30 a.m. Monday and 10 a.m. Tuesday, while the museum was closed to the public, Kuchta said. A thief removed four screws holding a plexiglass cover over the vase, took the 17-inch-tall aqua-tinted work, and substituted a less valuable copper vase.