Art Theft

ARMED ROBBERS STEAL THE SCREAM!

You mean for the thread on the board that I never checked? ;-)

ARCA blog entry on yesterday's big theft in Paris

For six weeks, the Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris has waited for parts to fix their security system. Last night, five paintings valued at 100 million euros were stolen between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning from the building in one of the most fashionable districts in Paris, just blocks from the Pont de l’Alma where Princess Diana died in 1997 and north of the Eiffel Tour.

The thief accessed the collection though a rear window of the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo. It is possible that the thief drove his scooter along the Avenue du New York that runs parallel to the Seine. He likely rode a scooter because the street has signs posted for no parking and heavy black gates divide the road from the wide sidewalk as is common in central Paris.

A recessed doorway marked #14 may have provided excellent cover for a parked scooter underneath the balcony terrace at the back of the museum. The doorway is located about eight to ten feet from the road which is fenced with wrought iron. However, there are openings for a scooter to reenter the traffic from the sidewalk.

After hopping over the balcony, he may have taken out – probably from a bag slung over his shoulder – a long cutter that could provide enough force to break the padlock that secured the window’s metal accordion shutters that protected the one-story windows. Opening these metal shutters would have created a loud and persistent screeching sound as the metal rubbed against the sliders in the window casements.

Once the glass window was exposed, the intruder may have used the handle of the cutter to smash open the middle panel of the window and to climb into the building. The thief may have known that the security alarm would not alert the security guards, the police, or even notify anyone that the building had been broken into. He would also have known that no security guard would have been patrolling nearby the area of the stolen paintings.

A security video camera caught a masked man entering through the window. The thief may have decided it was too difficult to turn off the security camera and just wore a covering to obscure his identity.

Inside, the intruder selected five paintings from the same period that were most likely located in either the same room or close to one another, removed the works from their frames, and left without disturbing the three night security guards.

The thief broke open a gate, smashed the glass in a window, and had time to remove five paintings from their frames? Why did not one of the guards hear or see any of this activity, especially since the security patrol was aware that the alarm was disabled?

The thief may have removed the paintings from their frames so that they would be easier to carry while he drove away on his scooter. All the paintings, without frames, were of small to mid-size and could easily be carried.

A thief with an automobile and a second driver – who would be waiting in the car since there was no place to park legally – would have saved time by taking the paintings with their frames down from the walls and just thrown the paintings into the back seat of the car.

The empty frames were finally discovered Thursday morning by 6 or 6.30 a.m. by the one of the three security museum guards.

The Brigade de Répression du Banditsme, the elite police unit that fights organized crime and art theft, was in charge of the investigation.

The day of the theft, the police had littered the terrace with yellow evidence markers around the frames leaning against the balcony. The police officers were measuring the frames and various locations on the patio.

Chritophe Girard, deputy culture secretary in Paris, estimated the value of the stolen paintings at 100 Euros ($123 million). The five missing paintings are reported as:

“Le pigeon aux petits-pois” (The Pidgeon with the Peas), an ochre and brown Cubist oil painting by Pablo Picasso worth an estimated 23 million euros;
“La Pastorale”, an oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Henri Matisse about 15 million euros. Matisse, the leader, of Fauvism, was a rival and friend of Pablo Picasso. Matisse painted this oil on a 46 x 55 centimeter canvas in 1905.
“L’olivier prés de l’Estaque” by Georges Braque;
“La femme a l’eventail” (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani;
and “Nature-more aux chandeliers” (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Fernand Leger.

According to Paris’ mayor Betrand Delanoe, the museum’s security system, including some of the surveillance cameras, has not worked since March 30 and has not been fixed since the security company is waiting for parts from a supplier (Bloomberg.com, “Picasso, Matisse Paintings Stolen From Paris Museum”, May 20, 2010).

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is located at 11, avenue du Président Wilson in the 16th arrondisement in Paris, just three blocks west of the Alma Metro station and one block east of the Place d’Iéna and another metro station. The museum, closed on Mondays, is free to visitors for the permanent collection. All five paintings belonged to the permanent collection gathered from private collectors’ generous gifts to Paris’ city museum of modern art.

The 1911 Picasso still life was a gift from Dr. Girardin in 1953. It was featured in the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques in Modern Life in 1937.

The building for the museum was constructed in 1937 and officially opened in 1961 with a collection built from donations from private collectors, especially that from Dr. Girardin. The stolen works were from the oldest part of the collection.

http://burusi.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/1912-le-pigeon-aux-petits-pois.jpg

http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/Matisse-pastoral.gif

http://www.eternels-eclairs.fr/images/peinture/tableaux/georges-braque/georges-braque-l-olivier-pres-de-l-estaque.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TAa8uAJ6UKE/SruOtkKQxvI/AAAAAAAAGX8/5_bg8kP0zjo/s320/Amedeo-MODIGLIANI---femme---l-eventail.jpg

http://www.artzari.fr/donnees/images/images/nature-morte-au-chandelier-leger-fernand.jpg

Good taste, that guy.

I never understand why people steal artworks. What are they going to do with them? They cant blatantly sell them.

they can...for a price

I don't even know why I fuckin post on the internet anymore I don't understand half the shit I post

lolll

I guess there's a crazy black market wherein shady billionaires buy them and hide them on an island gallery that only they have access to. Which is kinda neat.

Haha thats the kind thing I'm thinking: sure, there'd be a black market but wtf, its not like you can hang the fucking Scream on yr wall and go "oh yeah I bought this off... some guy... I think his name was Redd*

*sorry, lame Animal Xing joke.

Van Gogh stolen, suspects nabbed

!!!

German police recover 1,500 modernist masterpieces 'looted by Nazis'

About 1,500 modernist masterpieces – thought to have been looted by the Nazis – have been confiscated from the flat of an 80-year-old man from Munich, in what is being described as the biggest artistic find of the postwar era.

The artworks, which could be worth as much as €1bn (£860m), are said to include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and Emil Nolde. They had been considered lost until now, according to a report in the German news weekly Focus.

The works, which would originally have been confiscated as "degenerate art" by the Nazis or taken from Jewish collectors in the 1930s and 1940s, had made their way into the hands of a German art collector, Hildebrand Gurlitt. When Gurlitt died, the artworks were passed down to his son, Cornelius – all without the knowledge of the authorities.

Gurlitt, who had not previously been on the radar of the police, attracted the attention of the customs authorities only after a random cash check during a train journey from Switzerland to Munich in 2010, according to Focus. Further police investigations led to a raid on Gurlitt's flat in Schwabing in spring 2011. Police discovered a vast collection of masterpieces by some of the world's greatest artists.

The artworks are thought to have been stored amid juice cartons and tins of food on homemade shelves in a darkened room. Since their seizure, they have been stored in a safe customs building outside Munich, where the art historian Meike Hoffmann, from Berlin university, has been assessing their precise origin and value. When contacted by the Guardian, Hoffmann said she was under an obligation to maintain secrecy and would not be able to comment on the Focus report until Monday

thieved by wicked german authorities from a completely innocent fascist octogenarian

i thought it was just the dad who was a fascist.

this piece was interesting

http://www.nrc.nl/kunsthal-en/

Stolen Van Gogh Painting Recovered by Groninger Museum in Ikea Bag
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/stolen-vincent-van-gogh-painting-recovered-groninger-museum-ikea-bag-1234679475/

Ikea bags transport a lot of things because of their large size, durability, and relatively low cost to consumers. But recently, the signature item from the Swedish furniture and home goods retailer held a stolen painting by Vincent van Gogh, The Parsonage garden at Nuenen in Spring.

Three and a half years ago, the work was stolen from the Singer Laren museum in a smash-and-grab robbery while the institution was closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 1884 painting had been on loan to the Singer Laren from the Groninger Museum voor Stad en Lande in the Netherlands.

Video security footage shared with The Guardian showed an individual breaking through the Singer Laren’s glass doors using a sledgehammer and leaving with the van Gogh.

Arthur Brand, a Dutch private art detective, recently negotiated the return of the Dutch Post-Impressionist’s oil on paper panel. Last weekend, Brand met with a contact in Amstelveld, a square in central Amsterdam, where the painting was handed over in the bright blue Ikea bag.

Thieves Blew The Door Off Gallery to Steal Two of Four Rare Warhol Prints from Dutch Gallery
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/andy-warhol-rare-prints-stolen-from-dutch-gallery-1234722759/

I wouldn't walk more than a few blocks to look at any of those Warhol prints and I walk at least 2 miles a day. They aren't very interesting as images, even if they were color-manipulated by *gasp* Mr. Andrew Warhol! [/old_man_yelling_at_wealthy_art_collectors]

I realized that I forgot to mention The Thief Collector here - worth checking out if you think it's your thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tT9oFa1k7A

What reminded me of it is that a two more paintings stolen by the couple were just recovered after they were noticed in a still photo of the interior of their house that was shown in the doc
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/fbi-recovers-paintings-university-new-mexico-harwood-museum-art-1234744684/

Detailed look at the jewel heist from the Louvre today
https://art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/10/jewel-heist-at-musee-du-louvre.html

detailed look at my decaying brain right now: 🎶 i did the LOUVRE with a LADDER on a LORRY 🎵

Genuinely puzzled how this keeps happening to European museums but not in the US?

US has too few gentlemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman_thief

(xp) Nuthin' worth nickin', innit?

Thief who clumsily dropped 2490 diamonds and 56 emeralds in the street, what's on your Ipod?

Paul Simon - Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

(ideally the Todd Terje remix)

The interesting piece of history is that a lot of those jewels were sold in the UK when the Empress had to go in exile, Charles Tiffany made a fortune, and those jewels found their way in the US high society of the late 19th. Nice links between Napoleon III, first international fairs, birth of the modern luxury industry, and Edith Wharton.

Genuinely puzzled how this keeps happening to European museums but not in the US?

Hey, we're #1! The great Boston art heist. Granted, that is the only American theft on the list.

https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/greatest-art-heists-of-all-time-1234583441/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-theft/

edith wharton pictured recently:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/1e/45/6a/1e456a7fff789fb0c19eec8c5b8d17a5.jpg

(xp) Nuthin' worth nickin', innit?

Tell that to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft?wprov=sfti1

And that was 35 years ago…it seems like some Euro museum gets it every six months

as well as more gentlemen (see above) europe has more loot (artier, more royals leaving their shiny stuff all over the place)

Cmon man our ruling class is just as gaudy. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond has the world’s largest collection of Fabergé eggs! Surely we can outwit some southerners!

dude be serious hollywood has to import posh englishmen to portray its fanciest villains

I get the impression art thefts are pretty rare in the UK. Nothing much has gone missing from the Tate or the National Gallery, with the exception of the splendidly named Kempton Bunton heist in 1961:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempton_Bunton

The UK doesn't really have all much worth nicking either tbh.

i started to post abt the theft of the crown jewels in the 60s but then i realised i was thinking of a michael winner film (THE JOKERS, 1967) and mixing it up with the theft of the world cup*

*crime solved by a dog called pickles

https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2025/10/19/921b2add-5959-4953-88a7-c57f57d9781f.jpg?width=1000

Typically, I fucked up linking to this amazing photo from the scene of the heist:

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/miscellaneous/paris-police-hunts-thieves-behind-louvre-jewelry-heist

Gotta a British jewel thief would look way better in a dinner jacket.

Slim mustache, David Niven type. Beautiful sidekick.

Genuinely puzzled how this keeps happening to European museums but not in the US?

― This dark glowing bohemian coffeehouse (Boring, Maryland), Monday, October 20, 2025 8:30 AM (four hours ago)

i'm guessing obviously but i think because of geography it's just a lot easier to get away with this kind of crime in europe than it is in the US. like, you could rob the louvre and drive away and be in one of like 4 or 5 different countries before the police have even been able to dust for fingerprints. there's not really an equivalent scenario if you're trying to rob i.e. the met. i guess you could drive to canada but even that only gets you so far, there is a geographic isolation w/ north america that i think has to be a big factor here. i'd also imagine that the market for extremely well known or rare art/artifacts/jewels etc is highly concentrated in europe, the middle east, asia as opposed to the US so i feel like it has to be much easier from a point A to point B scenario to get the goods to potential buyers when you don't have to bother w/ smuggling them out of the US first

i think this is also a main reason why you rarely if ever see political assassinations of foreign nationals (i.e. russians etc) on american soil. there's very few ways to leave the US

from the NYT:

If the thieves do try to sell on the jewels, Ellis said gangs historically sold diamonds to dealers in Antwerp, a global hub for gem sales. But, he added, the European Union’s open borders allowed far more options for selling on and distributing stolen material. Bombeke said the jewels would likely be taken out of Europe to be recut.

i think what's most interesting to me is that they decided to pull this off on a weekend morning soon after the museum opened, there was something about the security situation at that time that they obviously thought was appealing

Maybe that the US museums where the priciest stuff is are more recently built, with fortress-like security measures designed into them. Whereas Euro museums are more likely to be in old buildings converted to museums.

"Climb up this drainpipe and pry open that window, and you're in, Trevor"

I think you’ve hit on it difference Jordan, the difficulty to get yourself and the loot quickly out of the US makes sense.

might also have something to do with cops in europe carrying around squirt guns and whistles. not that I'm opposed to that necessarily...

i think what's most interesting to me is that they decided to pull this off on a weekend morning soon after the museum opened, there was something about the security situation at that time that they obviously thought was appealing

... that someone working at the Louvre had tipped them off about.

might also have something to do with cops in europe carrying around squirt guns and whistles. not that I'm opposed to that necessarily...

― comrade jhøsh (k3vin k.), Monday, October 20, 2025 11:07 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbf I don’t remember from when I was there a couple of years ago whether the security at the louvre carried guns

i don't think art and jewel thieves are particularly concerned w/ being shot. i think the point is to be gone before anyone arrives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCtEkGvNLVU

"Typically, I fucked up linking to this amazing photo from the scene of the heist:
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/miscellaneous/paris-police-hunts-thieves-behind-louvre-jewelry-heist"

Is that man trying to be Gary Numan circa Dance?

There was a news story fairly recently about one of the Space Shuttles. Discovery, the middle shuttle. There's a plan to move it from one museum in Washington DC to another museum, in Houston, as a result of some kind of law that means Houston has to have a shuttle:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moving-nasa-space-shuttle-to-texas-from-dc-could-damage-it-experts-say/

But there's no easy way to move it by road, or by barge, and NASA's shuttle carrier aircraft have been decommissioned so it can't be flown. The only way to move it would be to chop it into bits, which puts me in mind of The Man Who Fell to Earth, because after it's chopped into bits whatever slim hope there is of it ever being airborne again will vanish. I mean, it's not flying ever again, but a man can dream. Over time the shuttles will become like Jesus' knucklebones, in the sense that there will be enough parts dispersed throughout the world to make more shuttles than were ever built.

That got me to thinking about New York's Intrepid museum, which is housed on the USS Intrepid, a parked aircraft carrier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrepid_Museum

Imagine if someone managed to steal the entire thing. All they would have to do is pull up the anchor, back Intrepid into the Hudson river, turn it around 90 degrees, and silently slip out into the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop, Western Sahara. Obviously they would have to do it at night. If they could reactivate the museum's air wing they would have no fear of the coast guard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrepid_Museum#Aircraft

Imagine if the real world were a low-budget caper movie. Life is a lot less grim if you imagine that the real world is a low-budget caper movie, along the lines of One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. A comedy caper movie where the baddies get covered in paint, not a Shane Black caper film where the hero's girlfriend gets accidentally shot in the head.

Or one of those all-star chase films, such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Or The Railway Children. Or Local Hero. Or anything. Why? Because the movies make sense. And that's comforting. They make sense.