On February 14, 2014, reports documented the recovery in Edmonton of a fifth-century BCE Achaemenid limestone bas-relief stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2011. The theft had involved two small antiquities taken from open display: the Persian relief and a Roman marble head. The relief had been bought for a small sum by Simon Metke, who believed it might be a replica, before investigators traced it through a television interview background and a police search. The recovery highlighted the vulnerabilities of small, unprotected antiquities in permanent collections and the complicated aftermath of insured museum losses: once recovered, the relief belonged to the insurer unless the museum chose to buy it back. The Roman head remained missing in later accounts.
The case became a cautionary example of provenance risk, museum display security, and insurer ownership after recovery.