close

       Video

       Fox News Flash top headlines for Nov. 17 Fox News Flash top headlines for Nov. 17 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com

       A stolen ring once belonging to the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered nearly 20 years after it was stolen from Britain’s Oxford University, according to reports.

       Arthur Brand, a Dutchman nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” for successfully recovering high-profile stolen artworks, used his connections in the underworld to track down Wilde’s ring, AFP reported.

       The ring, which Wilde gave to a fellow student in 1876, was stolen during a burglary in 2002 at Oxford’s Magdalen College. At the time, the ring was worth about $45,000.

       The stolen ring that had belonged to Oscar Wilde was recovered some 20 years later. (Getty, File)

       The burglary remained unsolved for years, with fears that the ring – made from 18-carat gold – may have been melted down.

       650-YEAR OLD BURIED TREASURE FOUND IN AUSTRIAN BACKYARD

       “We had given up hope of seeing it again,” Mark Blandford-Baker, Magdalen College’s home bursar, told AFP.

       He said the university was “very pleased to have back a stolen item that forms part of a collection relating to one of our more famous alumni.”

       CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

       “[W]e are extremely grateful to Arthur Brand for finding it and returning it to us,” Blandford-Baker said.

       The ring is set to make its return to Magdalen College in a formal ceremony on Dec. 4.