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A donation of 500 guitars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this past May was perceived as a particularly exciting addition to the collection—so exciting, in fact, that the donation even announced via a long-form profile in The New Yorker. But that donation may include one object that may have made it into the donation by ill means.
In a New York Post story published July 10, a manager for former Rolling Stones musician Mick Taylor claimed that the Met was now in possession of his stolen Les Paul guitar. That guitar was taken from the Rolling Stones’s French villa, in Nellcôte, in 1971, the year thieves reportedly absconded with nine of Keith Richards’ guitars, among other instruments.
The Met initially did not comment on Taylor’s claims, but on August 1, The New York Times published a report that added another twist to the story: The museum claimed that Taylor did indeed play the guitar but that he never actually owned it.
“This guitar has a long and well-documented history of ownership,” the museum told the Times.
The 500 guitars were given to the Met by collector Dirk Ziff. At the time, Met director Max Hollein said the guitars composed “a trailblazing and transformative gift, positioning the Museum to be the epicenter for the appreciation and study of the American guitar.”
The museum plans to open a permanent gallery in 2027 about American guitars, with some works from the gift on view here.
It isn’t clear from the Post story how Taylor discovered his guitar was held by the Met. The guitars are not currently on view, and a complete checklist of them has not been released to the public. The Met’s release did mention Keith Richards, another Rolling Stones member, but the museum said it had a 1959 Les Paul he played in 1964. Taylor was not mentioned in that announcement.
But Taylor’s manager, Marlies Damming, claimed that the Met did have Taylor’s guitar. “There are numerous photos of Mick Taylor playing this Les Paul, as it was his main guitar until it disappeared,” Damming told the Post. “The interesting thing about these vintage Les Pauls (from the late 1950s), is that they are renowned for their flaming . . . which is unique, like a fingerprint.”
The report also cited an unnamed source, who said, “Taylor says he never received compensation for the theft and is mystified as to how his property found its way into the Met’s collection.”
The Times report stated that Richards did own the guitar and that the instrument was never stolen. By 1971 Adrian Miller was listed as the guitar’s owner, but the Times reported that it was unclear, based on the Met’s provenance, how and from whom Miller bought it.
This article was originally published July 16, 2025, at 12:04 p.m., and has now been updated with more details about the Met’s response.