Man arrested over Saatchi artworks fire

Police have arrested a man over a London warehouse fire that destroyed a major swathe of British modern art history.

Police have arrested a man over a London warehouse fire that destroyed a major swathe of British modern art history.

More than 100 works by leading contemporary artists were lost in the blaze, many of them belonging to millionaire collector Mr Charles Saatchi.

Among the incinerated works were key pieces of the "BritArt" genre, including work by Turner Prize-nominated Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers.

Officers arrested a man (23) in Walthamstow, northeast London on Monday "on suspicion of burglary in relation to the fire", said a Scotland Yard spokeswoman. He was questioned and later released on bail pending further inquiries.

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Investigators say a unit at the east London warehouse was burgled shortly before the blaze broke out.

Tracey Emin's controversial tent Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995was destroyed, as was Hell, a series of nine miniature landscapes by Jake and Dinos Chapman depicting scenes of mutilation and destruction.

One of the two pieces to have survived was Damien Hirst's monumental sculpture Charity, an outsize replica of an old-fashioned charity box in the shape of a young girl, which was stored in a courtyard outside the warehouse.