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(In Frame: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Rembrandt’s self-portrait) While everybody loves a good heist movie, few know about the real-life art heists that serve as their inspiration. Despite what one may guess, even the world’s most famous paintings have not been beyond the reach of thieves. From Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, this gallery features some of the most notable art thefts of their time that made numerous headlines. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa) On August 21, 1911 (Roughly 114 years ago today), a construction worker boldly stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, hoping to return it to Italy. Post the worker’s theft, the painting was not recovered until two years later. The Mona Lisa presently resides in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it is encased in bulletproof glass. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers) In 1991, yet another globally famous painting went missing when thieves broke into the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and seized 20 paintings, including Sunflowers, a painting that had sold for a then-record $40 million in 1987. The thieves later abandoned all the paintings in their getaway car as they could not get the same prices for the artworks. The painting is presently housed at the same museum. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Edvard Munch’s The Scream) Edvard Munch painted four versions of his iconic work The Scream. One version was stolen in 1994 from the National Art Museum in Oslo, during an exhibition that was tied to the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. The thieves demanded a $1 million ransom for its return. However, the Swedish police refused the offer and recovered the paintings two months later. Following its recovery, the painting was stolen once more in 2006 by a different set of thieves who were also later caught by the authorities. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Renoir’s Conversation with the Gardener and Rembrandt’s self-portrait) Armed with submachine guns, the thieves collected Renoir’s Young Parisian and Conversation with the Gardener and a Rembrandt self-portrait before exiting the National Museum in Stockholm in 2000. These paintings were later recovered as part of sting operations conducted by the American FBI‘s Art Crime team in coordination with Danish and Swedish police. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Raphael’s The Mute Woman and The Flagellation of Christ) In 1975, gangsters broke into the Ducal Palace (now the National Gallery of the Marches) in Urbino, Italy, and made off with a trio of internationally famous works: Raphael’s The Mute Woman and The Flagellation of Christ and Madonna by Piero della Francesca. The thieves had little luck converting the paintings into profit, however, and all three works were recovered unharmed a year later and retired to the National Gallery in Italy. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Vincent van Gogh, ‘View of the Sea at Scheveningen’) On December 8, 2002, two early works by Vincent van Gogh, “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen”, were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. After a 14-year disappearance, the paintings were recovered during an investigation of organised crime in 2016. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert) March 18, 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, was the site of the largest art heist in US history when two thieves disguised as police officers gained entry and stole 13 works of art. The stolen pieces, worth a total of $300 million, include Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert and Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. These paintings remain missing to date. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Matisse’s “La Pastorale” (“Pastoral”), Modigliani’s “La Femme à l’Éventail” (“Woman with a Fan”) and Léger’s “Nature Morte aux Chandeliers” (“Still Life with Candeliers”) Five paintings valued at over €100 million were stolen in a heist at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2010. The thief, known as “Spider-Man”, gained entry by breaking a padlock and a window, removing the works from their frames. The stolen masterpieces included Matisse’s “La Pastorale” (“Pastoral”), Modigliani’s “La Femme à l’Éventail” (“Woman with a Fan”) and Léger’s “Nature Morte aux Chandeliers” (“Still Life with Candeliers”). All the paintings remain missing to this date. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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(In Frame: Monet’s Sunrise) The Musée Marmottan Monet was the scene of a dramatic armed robbery in 1985, when Claude Monet’s iconic painting Impression, Sunrise was stolen along with eight other Impressionist masterpieces. The artwork that gave the Impressionist movement its name disappeared for five years before being miraculously rediscovered in 1990 in Italy and restored in the museum. (Photo Source: National Art Gallery)
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