Thieves stole Henry Moore's 2-ton Reclining Figure, valued at 3 million pounds, from his foundation in 2005 and police believe it was sold for scrap worth under 3,000 pounds

Henry Moore's home at Perry Green is the base of the Henry Moore Foundation, which holds his sculpture. Reclining Figure 1969 to 70 is a bronze 3.6 metres long and 2.1 tons, one of six casts plus an artist's copy. The Foundation's own cast was stolen on the night of 15 December 2005. The thieves lifted it onto a stolen flatbed lorry with a crane; CCTV recorded the theft and the lorry was found abandoned at Coopersale, Essex. The work was valued at 3 million pounds. Tate gives the scrap value as under 3,000 pounds, and Wikipedia gives 1,500 pounds. Police believe it was cut up for scrap the same night and was shipped through Rotterdam to the Far East^†. Tate notes rising scrap prices linked to a building boom in Asia. No one is recorded as convicted for the theft^†. In 2009 German artist Fritz Balthaus cast bronze ingots of the same weight and showed them at the Federal Criminal Police Office in Berlin. In July 2011 a 1965 Moore sundial worth 500,000 pounds was stolen from the same estate; two men were reportedly sentenced to 12 months after selling it to a scrap dealer for 46 pounds^†.