In November 2021, more than 1,300 items were reported missing from the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums collection.

At the time, the council said it was “optimistic” that many of the items would be discovered, blaming a possible recording error during the art gallery’s refurbishment.

More than 684 artefacts, including a Neolithic stone axe, and 400 antiques, including ancient Chinese ornaments, have yet to be identified. Approximately 120 items have been classified as stolen, including a purple velvet evening bag.

Councillor Martin Grieg, the council’s culture spokesperson, stated that “considerable efforts” were made to ensure that staff were aware of the collection’s contents.

He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Lunchtime Live programme: “There are times when artefacts are stored but not properly indexed.

“We have implemented a very robust system to ensure that we have up-to-date reports and records for all of the items in the collection.”

“There will be a proportion that have been stolen, a proportion will have been misfiled, in the wrong place or mis-labelled, so there is work underway to find out exactly what we have and where.”

Aberdeen City Council said it had posted information about the missing items on its emuseum website.

In 2022, the authority stated that the losses occurred over many years, if not decades.

Only about 10% of the items listed as missing have been photographed, and some may have been misplaced during the relocation of large sections of the collection.

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