The great art heists
Fifteen museum thefts, from the Gardner's thirteen missing works to the Mona Lisa's twenty-eight months away, ranked by what is still gone, with the record behind each one.
Contents16 sections
- The Gardner Museum, Boston, 1990
- The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2010
- The Kunsthal, Rotterdam, 2012
- The Just Judges, Ghent, 1934
- Caravaggio's Nativity, Palermo, 1969
- Cézanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise, Oxford, 1999
- The Green Vault, Dresden, 2019
- The Scream, twice: Oslo, 1994 and 2004
- The Mona Lisa, Paris, 1911
- Woman in Gold, Vienna, 1938
- The Beit Vermeer, Russborough House, 1974 and 1986
- The takeaway Rembrandt, Dulwich, 1966 to 1983
- Van Gogh's Parsonage Garden, Laren, 2020
- Goya's Duke of Wellington, London, 1961
- The Duchess of Devonshire, London, 1876
- What the files have in common
The biggest art heist on record is the one nobody has solved. In the early hours of 18 March 1990 two men in police uniforms were let into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, restrained the two guards in the basement and left at 2:45 am with thirteen works, according to the museum's own account. The works are now valued at more than $500 million and the case is unsolved, as PBS NewsHour summarised it. The most famous heist is a different one: the Mona Lisa, taken from the Louvre in August 1911 by a glazier who had worked there, and missing for twenty-eight months.
The six thefts whose loot never came back lead, largest first; the nine that ended in a recovery follow. Every date, count and figure is linked to the museum's record, the court's, or a report of the day.
The Gardner Museum, Boston, 1990
When The early hours of 18 March 1990.
What was taken Thirteen works. Vermeer's The Concert; Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, A Lady and Gentleman in Black and a small self-portrait etching; Govaert Flinck's Landscape with an Obelisk; Manet's Chez Tortoni; five works on paper by Degas; a Chinese gu; and a Napoleonic eagle finial. The museum lists all thirteen on its theft page.
What happened The two men rang the intercom saying they were answering a disturbance, and the guard let them through the employee entrance. He and a second guard were restrained in the basement and stayed handcuffed until police arrived at 8:15 am. The thieves cut the two large Rembrandts from their frames, lifted the Vermeer and the Flinck out of theirs, and took the security videotapes, PBS reported.
Where it is now Unknown. The reward began at $5 million and was doubled a decade later; the museum promises a share for any single work and $100,000 for the finial alone. The empty frames still hang.
Print We print The Storm on the Sea of Galilee from photography of the painting as it hung; our Vermeers are in Vermeer prints.
The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2010
When 20 May 2010.
What was taken Five paintings owned by the city of Paris, by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Léger, valued at €109 million, according to The Art Newspaper's report of the 2017 verdict.
What happened In February 2017 a Paris court gave the burglar Vjéran Tomic, called Spider-Man in the press, eight years; the antiques dealer Jean-Michel Corvez, judged the instigator, seven; and Jonathan Birn, the clock expert who had hidden the paintings, six. The three were ordered jointly to pay the city €104 million.
Where it is now Unknown. Birn told the court he panicked during an unrelated search of his home in 2011 and threw the paintings away. Neither the prosecutor nor Corvez believed him.
Print We do not sell any of the five.
The Kunsthal, Rotterdam, 2012
When Between 3 and 4 am on 16 October 2012.
What was taken Seven paintings from the Triton Foundation collection, among them Picasso's Tête d'Arlequin, Monet's Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge and Lucian Freud's Woman with Eyes Closed, DutchNews reported that day.
What happened In November 2013 a Bucharest court sentenced Radu Dogaru and Eugen Darie to six years and eight months each, DutchNews reported; the foundation's insurers had paid it €18 million. Dogaru's mother, Olga, told prosecutors she had burned the paintings in her stove, then withdrew the statement. A researcher found traces of paint and nails in the ashes and said three works had probably been burned, though not which.
Where it is now Possibly ash. The Art Newspaper notes that the police could not prove the burning, so all seven are listed as missing.
Print We do not sell any of the seven.
The Just Judges, Ghent, 1934
When The night of 10 April 1934.
What was taken One panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, painted on both sides: the Just Judges on the front, John the Baptist on the back. The two sides had been split apart in the nineteenth century, so the thief took two pictures, VRT reported in 2024.
What happened An extortionist signing as D.U.A. returned the John the Baptist as proof; it was found in a luggage locker at Brussels North station. Negotiations over the Judges broke down. In the autumn of 1934 Arseen Goedertier, of Wetteren in East Flanders, admitted some involvement on his deathbed and died before saying where the panel was; evidence in his home suggested he may have been the extortionist.
Where it is now Unknown. The Judges in the altarpiece are a copy, and the investigation is open.
Print We print the whole altarpiece open, copy included, as it stands in St Bavo's; more in Van Eyck prints.
Caravaggio's Nativity, Palermo, 1969
When The night of 17 to 18 October 1969.
What was taken Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, the altarpiece of the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo.
What happened It was cut from its frame. Rumour has had it eaten by rats in a barn or cut up for sale; a former Mafia member's account, reported in 2018, had it intact in Switzerland. Apollo advises treating such testimony with caution.
Where it is now Unknown. A full-size re-creation by Factum Arte has hung in its place since November 2015.
Print We print Caravaggio's The Supper at Emmaus from the National Gallery, London, with the rest of Caravaggio prints.
Cézanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise, Oxford, 1999
When New Year's Eve 1999, hours before the new millennium.
What was taken Cézanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise, 1879 to 1880, from the Ashmolean Museum.
What happened Under cover of the celebrations the thief climbed the scaffolding of the next building, came in through a smashed skylight and blocked the motion sensors with a smoke bomb, as The Art Newspaper recounts.
Where it is now Unknown.
Print We print the Metropolitan Museum's The Card Players instead; more in Cézanne prints.
The Green Vault, Dresden, 2019
When 25 November 2019, The Art Newspaper records.
What was taken Three diamond jewellery sets, insured for at least €114 million, The National reported; more than 4,300 diamonds in all.
What happened The burglars had sawn through part of a window grating in advance. In May 2023 a German court sentenced five members of one extended family, mostly based in Berlin, to between four years and four months and six years and two months, and acquitted a sixth, Al Jazeera reported.
Where it is now Mostly back. In December 2022, after talks between defence and prosecution, police recovered 31 objects in Berlin. The epaulette with the Saxon White diamond and Queen Amalie Auguste's large breast bow are still missing.
Print Jewels, not paintings; nothing to print.
The Scream, twice: Oslo, 1994 and 2004
When 12 February 1994, the opening day of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics; and 22 August 2004.
What was taken In 1994, the National Gallery's Scream of 1893, tempera and crayon on cardboard, stolen and returned the same year. In 2004, the Munch Museum's Scream and its Madonna.
What happened In 1994 the thieves climbed in by ladder and took the painting in its frame; a $1 million ransom demand was refused. On 7 May police found it in good condition in a hotel room in Åsgårdstrand and arrested three people, UPI reported that day. In 2004 two armed men ripped both paintings off the Munch Museum's wall and escaped in a car driven by an accomplice. In May 2006 three men were convicted; the driver got eight years and a man who supplied the car seven, and the two were ordered to pay the city $123 million. The paintings were still missing.
Where it is now Both back. On 31 August 2006 Oslo police announced the recovery of The Scream and Madonna, handed over in good shape in a rubbish bag; no ransom was paid, according to UPI.
Print We print the 1893 Scream and the National Museum's Madonna of 1894, one of five painted versions; more in Munch prints.
The Mona Lisa, Paris, 1911
When 21 August 1911.
What was taken Leonardo's portrait of Lisa Gherardini, 79.4 by 53.4 centimetres, inventory INV 779. The Louvre's collections database names the thief as Vincenzo Peruggia, a glazier working at the museum, and dates the rediscovery to 1913.
What happened In the white smock Louvre staff wore, Peruggia hid until the gallery closed, took the painting from its frame and walked out with it when the museum reopened. In November 1913 he wrote to a Florence dealer, Alfredo Geri, offering to bring it to Italy for 500,000 lire. He came the next month, Geri persuaded him to leave it for examination, and the police arrested him that day, as History Today recounts. He served a brief prison sentence.
Where it is now The Louvre, since 1914.
Print We print the Mona Lisa uncropped, and Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine; more in Leonardo prints.
Woman in Gold, Vienna, 1938
When March 1938, after Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich.
What was taken Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's collection, including Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I of 1907. A seizure, not a burglary.
What happened The Nazis claimed Bloch-Bauer's Vienna villa, sugar factory and art; he fled to Switzerland and died there with none of it recovered. The Klimts reached the Austrian National Gallery through a Nazi lawyer, Erich Führer, The Art Newspaper reported. His niece Maria Altmann sued Austria in California, and on 7 June 2004 the US Supreme Court ruled six to three that the suit could go ahead (Republic of Austria v. Altmann). On 15 January 2006 an Austrian arbitration panel ruled that five Klimts be returned to the heirs.
Where it is now The Neue Galerie in New York, which says Ronald S. Lauder acquired the painting for the museum in 2006 and that it has been on permanent view since.
Print We print Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I with the rest of Klimt prints.
The Beit Vermeer, Russborough House, 1974 and 1986
When 26 April 1974, and again in May 1986.
What was taken Both times, Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid from Sir Alfred and Lady Clementine Beit's house in County Wicklow, among 19 paintings in 1974, RTÉ reported, and £30 million worth in 1986.
What happened The 1974 raid was by an IRA gang that included Rose Dugdale, a British heiress; the paintings were recovered in Cork and she was jailed for nine years. The 1986 raid was the work of the Dublin criminal Martin Cahill, according to RTÉ. That time the Vermeer was gone for seven years, until gardaí working with Belgian police recovered it in Antwerp in 1993, RTÉ reported.
Where it is now The National Gallery of Ireland, one of seventeen paintings the Beit family gave it; restored and reframed, it went on view in June 1995.
Print We print Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid with the rest of Vermeer prints.
The takeaway Rembrandt, Dulwich, 1966 to 1983
When Four times, the first in 1966 and the last in 1983.
What was taken Rembrandt's 1632 portrait of the engraver Jacob de Gheyn III, a panel of twelve by ten inches, from Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London. Guinness World Records lists it for the most recorded thefts of one painting, as The Art Newspaper noted in 2019.
What happened In 1966 it went in a night burglary with seven other old masters, all recovered from a churchyard after the gallery refused a ransom. Around noon one day in August 1981 a thief unhooked it from the wall and walked past the guard with it in a bag or under a coat; the alarm was switched on only at night, UPI reported. It was last taken in 1983.
Where it is now Back at Dulwich.
Print We print Rembrandt's The Night Watch from the Rijksmuseum; more in Rembrandt prints.
Van Gogh's Parsonage Garden, Laren, 2020
When The night of 30 March 2020, during the first Dutch lockdown.
What was taken The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, 1884, on loan to the Singer Laren museum from the Groninger Museum.
What happened A man smashed glass doors with a sledgehammer and took the painting. DNA linked Nils M., who was given eight years for this and for a Frans Hals taken from a Leerdam museum in August 2020; an appeal court upheld the term in July 2022. In September 2023 a man handed the Van Gogh, slightly damaged, to the art detective Arthur Brand at night on the Amstelveld in Amsterdam; Brand returned it to the Groninger Museum on Monday 11 September, NL Times reported.
Where it is now The Groninger Museum.
Print We print Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr Gachet from the Musée d'Orsay; more in Van Gogh prints.
Goya's Duke of Wellington, London, 1961
When Just before dawn on Monday 21 August 1961.
What was taken Goya's portrait of Wellington, 1812 to 1814, bought that year with aid from the Wolfson Foundation and the Exchequer. The National Gallery's record says it was taken in August 1961 and recovered in May 1965.
What happened Anonymous notes to the press demanded a £140,000 ransom for charity, part of a campaign against pensioners paying the BBC licence fee. In 1965 the painting was recovered from the left-luggage office at Birmingham New Street station. Six weeks later Kempton Bunton, a 61-year-old unemployed Newcastle bus driver, walked into a London police station and said he had taken it. Tried at the Old Bailey, he was cleared of stealing the painting and jailed for three months for the frame. A prosecution file released in 2012 shows that the man who climbed in was his son John, then 20; John confessed after an arrest in Leeds in 1969 and was never prosecuted, The Guardian reported.
Where it is now The National Gallery, London.
Print We print Goya's The Third of May 1808 from the Prado; more in Goya prints.
The Duchess of Devonshire, London, 1876
When About three weeks after 6 May 1876, when the painting sold at Christie's for £10,500, then the highest price paid for a painting at auction, according to Pinkerton's own account.
What was taken Gainsborough's portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, from the gallery of the London dealer William Agnew.
What happened The thief was Adam Worth, an American bank and jewel thief living in London as Henry Judson Raymond. A quarter of a century later he asked the Pinkerton agency to broker the painting's return for a ransom and immunity. It went back to Agnew in March 1901; Worth died within the year.
Where it is now The collection at Chatsworth, as Sotheby's notes.
Print We do not print the Duchess.
What the files have in common
Most of the pictures came back. Nine of the fifteen thefts ended in a recovery. The six still missing include the largest: the Gardner, Paris and the Kunsthal. The Mona Lisa and The Scream are the famous ones, not the big ones.
The weak point is a door, not a vault. The Gardner guard let the thieves in. The Dulwich alarm was off by day. The Laren thief came through the glass doors.
From this list we print the Gardner's Rembrandt, the Louvre's Leonardo, Oslo's Munchs, Dublin's Vermeer and New York's Klimt: from $39 on 250 gsm archival paper, unframed or in a black or dark wood frame.
More in the Journal: the most famous paintings in the world and the most valuable paintings ever sold.
Famous Painting Prints Dutch Golden Age PaintingsQuestions people ask
What is the biggest art heist in history?
The theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on 18 March 1990. Two men in police uniforms were let in by a guard, restrained both guards in the basement and left with thirteen works, among them Vermeer's The Concert, Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and five works on paper by Degas. The works are valued at more than $500 million and the case is unsolved.
Has the Gardner Museum art been found?
No. None of the thirteen works has been recovered. The museum's reward began at $5 million and was doubled a decade later; it also promises a share for any single work and $100,000 for the Napoleonic eagle finial alone. The empty frames still hang in the museum.
How was the Mona Lisa stolen?
On 21 August 1911 Vincenzo Peruggia, a glazier who had worked at the Louvre, hid in the museum until it closed, took the painting from its frame and walked out with it when the museum reopened. It was missing for more than two years. In December 1913 he brought it to a Florence dealer, Alfredo Geri, who persuaded him to leave it for examination; Peruggia was arrested that day, and the painting went back to the Louvre in 1914.
Which famous stolen paintings have never been recovered?
Vermeer's The Concert and Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee (Gardner Museum, 1990); the Just Judges panel of the Ghent Altarpiece (1934); Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence (Palermo, 1969); Cézanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise (Ashmolean, 1999); the Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Léger taken from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2010; and the seven Kunsthal Rotterdam works of 2012, three of which a Romanian researcher said had probably been burned.
Do museums still get robbed?
Yes. The Green Vault in Dresden lost jewels insured for at least €114 million on 25 November 2019; the Singer Laren museum lost a Van Gogh to a man with a sledgehammer on 30 March 2020, during the first lockdown. Both cases ended in convictions; 31 of the Dresden objects came back in December 2022, and the Van Gogh was handed to an art detective in September 2023.
Was Woman in Gold stolen?
It was seized, not burgled. The Nazis took Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's collection, including Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, after the annexation of Austria in March 1938, and the painting went to the Austrian National Gallery. In 2004 the US Supreme Court let his niece Maria Altmann's suit against Austria go ahead, an Austrian arbitration panel ordered the painting returned to the heirs in January 2006, and it has been at the Neue Galerie in New York since that year.
Sources
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: the theft (18 March 1990, the thirteen works, how the thieves entered, the frames, the reward for the finial)
- PBS NewsHour: what to know about the world's largest art heist, from a Boston museum (more than $500 million, the reward, the videotapes, the empty frames)
- Musée du Louvre, collections database: Portrait de Lisa Gherardini (Mona Lisa), INV 779, with the 1911 theft by Vincenzo Peruggia and the 1913 rediscovery
- History Today, August 2011: The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre (21 August 1911; the letter to Alfredo Geri, November 1913; the arrest in Florence)
- Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo: The Scream, 1893, NG.M.00939 (stolen in 1994 and returned the same year)
- UPI, 7 May 1994: The Scream recovered in Norway (ladder, hotel room in Åsgårdstrand, $1 million ransom refused)
- Al Jazeera, 2 May 2006: three found guilty over Scream theft (22 August 2004 robbery, sentences, $123 million damages)
- UPI, 31 August 2006: Munch's Scream, Madonna recovered in Oslo
- VRT News, 10 April 2024: the mystery of the disappearance of the Just Judges, 90 years on
- DutchNews, 16 October 2012: Picasso, Monet and Matisse among seven works stolen from Kunsthal
- DutchNews, July 2013: stolen Kunsthal paintings, three were burned says researcher
- DutchNews, 26 November 2013: Kunsthal theft suspects found guilty, sentenced to nearly seven years
- Associated Press via NZ Herald, 26 November 2013: court sentences art thieves Radu Dogaru and Eugen Darie to six years, eight months (insurers paid the Triton Foundation €18 million)
- The Art Newspaper, 21 February 2017: 'Spider-Man' and accomplices sentenced in Paris museum theft
- Apollo, 8 June 2018: the murky mystery of Caravaggio's stolen Palermo Nativity (night of 17/18 October 1969)
- Factum Arte: the re-creation of Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence (installed in the Oratory of San Lorenzo, Palermo, November 2015)
- The Art Newspaper: missing masterpieces exhibition (Cézanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise, Ashmolean, New Year's Eve 1999; the Kunsthal Monets)
- The Art Newspaper, 19 December 2022: police recover 31 objects stolen from Dresden's Green Vault (25 November 2019; what is still missing)
- The National, 17 December 2022: German police recover jewels taken in 2019 Green Vault heist (31 items, insured for at least €114 million)
- Al Jazeera, 16 May 2023: German court sentences five over Green Vault heist (more than 4,300 diamonds, the window grating)
- Neue Galerie New York: The Woman in Gold (acquired by Ronald S. Lauder for the museum in 2006, on permanent view since)
- Supreme Court of the United States, Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677, decided 7 June 2004 (opinion, Cornell LII)
- The Art Newspaper, 1 February 2006: Austria must return five Nazi-looted Klimt paintings to the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer
- RTÉ Archives, 1995 report: the Beit Vermeer on display (stolen 1974 and 1986, recovered in Antwerp 1993, one of seventeen Beit gifts)
- RTÉ Archives, 1974 report: British heiress Rose Dugdale charged with Russborough art theft (26 April 1974, 19 paintings, recovered in Cork)
- RTÉ News, 26 June 2001: previous raids on Russborough (Dugdale's nine years; May 1986, Martin Cahill)
- UPI, 14 August 1981: a thief walked into the Dulwich Picture Gallery (the midday theft of the Rembrandt; the 1966 burglary)
- The Art Newspaper, 14 November 2019: attempted robbery at Dulwich Picture Gallery (Jacob de Gheyn III stolen four times, last in 1983; Guinness record)
- NL Times, 12 September 2023: investigators recover Van Gogh painting stolen in smash-and-grab from Singer Laren
- NL Times, 20 July 2022: eight years in prison for the theft of Van Gogh and Hals paintings upheld on appeal
- National Gallery, London: Goya, The Duke of Wellington (taken from the Gallery in August 1961, recovered May 1965)
- The Guardian, 30 November 2012: Revealed, 1961 Goya 'theft' from National Gallery was a family affair (the DPP file on John and Kempton Bunton)
- Pinkerton: the art thief and the detectives, a story of ransom and respect (the 1876 Agnew's theft, Adam Worth, the March 1901 return)
- Sotheby's: First lady of fashion, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (the Gainsborough portrait in the collection at Chatsworth)
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