The Heists That Made 'Em Famous

Art Napping: the stealing of paintings, sculptures, or other forms of visual art from galleries, museums or other public and private locations. The history of art is marked by the theft of works, from Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Gioconda” stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and then recovered years later, or even the famous work “America” ​​by Maurizio Cattelan taken away from Blenheim Palace in 2019, 103 kg of solid gold in the shape of a toilet, never found again. Stolen art is often resold or used by criminals as collateral to secure loans.

In 1473, Polish pirates boarded a ship that was en route to Florence. They walked the plank with Hans Memling’s The Last Judgment (1467–71), and hauled it back to their homeland. This is now considered the first recorded art heist. The painting today resides at the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland, and Italians have been seeking its recovery ever since.

The Memling heist is a significant example of how theft can transform an artwork’s history forever. It is not the only piece that has altered history in this way. Even though technology has gotten more sophisticated and the means by which heists are committed have changed, burglaries of the world’s greatest artworks continue to be executed.

So, from the first heist to one of the biggest art heists in history (which remains unsolved to this day). In 1990 thieves struck the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Over the next 81 minutes, they swiped 13 masterpieces. The FBI said the value of the stolen art topped half a billion dollars. And the crime remains unsolved.

So how did the criminal get away with it? They showed up at the museum late at night dressed as police officers. The museum’s security guard buzzed them in after the thieves claimed they were responding to a disturbance. Then the thieves handcuffed the security guard and methodically stole the most famous works held in the gallery.

The stolen art included famous pieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer. The thieves also took works by Degas and Manet. As the years have passed it is apparent that the FBI will probably never solve the case. But the museum has yet to give up hope – they are still offering a $10 million reward for any information that leads to the recovery of the art. It’s the largest reward ever offered by a private museum.

Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous artists in history. But before he made it big, the artist was accused of one of the greatest crimes in art history: stealing the Mona Lisa.

The art theft took place in 1911, when a thief walked out of the Louvre Art Museum with Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous portrait. Police instantly tried to track down the thief, but the trail went cold. Until they heard Picasso’s name.

A tipster pointed police towards Picasso. Apparently, the young artist had Iberian sculptures in his possession that had recently been in the Louvre before they went missing.

Police interrogated Picasso and demanded the truth. Did Picasso steal the Mona Lisa? It turns out that the tipster himself had stolen the statues and fenced them to Picasso before turning on his buyer. Since no other evidence tied Picasso to the bigger theft, the police had to release him.

It took over two years to recover the Mona Lisa. In 1913 the painting appeared in Florence and the truth came out. An Italian had stolen the painting because he didn’t want Italy’s great Renaissance art in a French museum.

While most heists take place in the wee hours of the morning, when institutions are closed, there are the bold. This particular heist unfolded in broad view of the general public in 2004. Amid tourists ogling nearby masterpieces in the Munch Museum in Oslo, thieves took The Scream (1910) and Madonna (1894) by the Norwegian Expressionist.

It wasn’t the first time a version of The Scream had been stolen, but it was, in some ways, more daring because of the throngs of people that were around when the thieves held guards at gunpoint and then departed in a black station wagon. Rumors swirled about what then happened. Were the paintings burned? Was the mob involved? In the end, the paintings were recovered in 2006. Six arrests were made, and the works went back to the Munch Museum.

The Guinness Book of World Records labeled Rembrandt’s 1632 painting Jacob De Gheyn III the “Takeaway Rembrandt” because it had been stolen so many times. Before it was taken in 1973, 1981, and 1983, Jacob de Gheyn was taken in 1966 from the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London by thieves who also removed works by Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard Dou, and Adam Elsheimer, and two Rembrandts. The thieves had hoped to sell the work on the black market, but police soon recovered it and the painting returned to the museum.

Real life does imitate TV at times. It was the setup of a Hollywood thriller. At 2 a.m. the Skylight Caper took place the morning of September 4, 1972. Thieves entered the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, one of Canada’s most important museums, through a skylight, and bound and gagged three guards.

Shortly after, they made off with 39 jewelry objects and 18 paintings, including ones by Delacroix, Rubens, and Rembrandt. The museum had been doing repairs on the skylight, which meant that thieves had been studying the museum, looking for an entry point. In 1972 the stolen art was valued at $2 million. None was ever recovered. The Rembrandt alone was worth $1 million. In 2003, the Globe and Mail estimated that the Rembrandt painting was worth 20 times that sum and suggested that the Montreal mafia may have been involved.

Art thief Vjeran Tomic earned the nickname “Spider-Man” by climbing into Parisian apartments and museums to steal valuable jewelry and artworks. Tomic and two accomplices were arrested for stealing a Matisse, a Picasso, a Braque, a Léger, and a Modigliani from the Musée d’Art Moderne in 2010.

While most heists take place at museums, a few have involved private collectors. This occurred in Madrid in 2015, when thieves broke into the house of José Capelo, who owned several paintings by his friend, the British artist Francis Bacon. While Capelo was away in London, the thieves stole five Bacon paintings worth $33.3 million. Seven people were arrested and police recovered three of the five paintings in 2017. Even though Spanish police have kept most the details of the theft private, El País dubbed it “the greatest contemporary art heist in recent Spanish history.”

Covid-19 lockdowns were beginning around the world. Major museums in Europe and North America were closing their doors to visitors. Thieves however were taking advantage of the eerie stillness. In March 2020 the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands suffered a heist.

Thieves walked off with a priceless early Vincent van Gogh painting. The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), which had been on loan from another Dutch institution, the Groninger Museum. The van Gogh was removed by thieves who broke into the museum using a sledgehammer and bypassing various layers of security. As of 2021, the van Gogh painting yet to be recovered.

History is alive with art heists. The world’s greatest living art thief is likely a 52-year-old Frenchman named Stéphane Breitwieser, who has stolen from some 200 museums, taking art worth an estimated total of $2 billion.

The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel explores Breitwieser’s strange world. Unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he alone could admire them. Stop by the library and meet the greatest art thief of all time in the book The Art Thief.