Met Denies Owning Guitar Stolen from Onetime Rolling Stone Mick Taylor
142Aug. 5, 2025
TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has refuted allegations that a guitar in its collection was stolen from erstwhile Rolling Stones axeman Mick Taylor. As first reported by theNew York Post, the instrument, a 1959 Les Paul with a distinctive sunburst finish, entered the Met’s possession as part of a trove of more than five hundred guitars donated to the institution by collector Dirk Ziff, who earlier loaned it to the Met for the 2019 exhibition “Play It Loud.” The museum in a press release touted the instrument as being played by Keith Richards during the Stones’ debut performance onThe Ed Sullivan Show, a proving ground for young bands of the day.
However, Taylor, who played with the Stones from 1969 to 1974, has asserted through his business manager and partner, Marlies Damming, that he bought the axe in question from Richards and that it was stolen in 1971 from Nellcôte, the French villa where the band recorded the 1972 landmark double albumExile on Main St. According to Taylor, he purchased the instrument through the Stones’ road manager while he was playing with bluesman John Mayall and brought it with him when he joined the Stones in ’69. Numerous photos show Taylor playing the guitar with the Stones.
The New York Times reports that the Met contends that the guitar remained in Richards’s possession until 1971, and that it subsequently passed into the hands of Adrian Miller. Though the museum says its research does not show that the guitar was purloined in the Nellcôte theft, in which other instruments were taken, it is not able to show definitively from whom Miller purchased the guitar. Miller, who died in 2006, sold the guitar the same year he bought it, to Cosmo Verrico, guitarist for British outfit Heavy Metal Kids: The instrument’s ownership appears to be thoroughly documented after that. Damming told the Times that she and Taylor wanted the Met to allow them to inspect the guitar; the Met told the paper it had not heard directly from either party regarding the matter. The museum has recently beefed up its provenance team after a 2023 ProPublica inquiry revealed issues with its collecting practices.