Crimes of the Art

July 27 2010, 12:52pm

Millions of people enter the world’s museums each year. Some leave only with a map and visitors button, some leave with souvenirs from the gift shops, but some, on occasion, manage to slip out with priceless masterpieces.

“The Art Thief” by Brian Romero.

Art theft has occurred for hundreds of years but increased considerably in the 20th century. Approximately 50,000 art thefts are reported world wide each year with an estimated value of $6 to 8 billion, although the number of undiscovered or unreported art crimes makes this a low estimate.1 However, art is not exactly the smartest thing to steal. “The most valuable examples, usually paintings, are also the most highly recognizable and therefore almost impossible to resell or to display anywhere. When thieves try they are often caught.”2 Two of the most famous paintings to be stolen and later recovered are Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, taken from the Louvre in 1911 (returned in 1913) and two versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, one of which was stolen in 1994 from the National Gallery in Oslo and returned the same year ,and  the other taken from the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2006 and recovered in 2008.

To cope with these international crimes, various organizations and specialist teams have been created to report and investigate instances of art trafficking. The FBI has a dedicated Art Crime Team comprised of special agents whose job it is to address recover stolen ‘art and cultural property,’ and prosecute the responsible parties. The Smithsonian National Conference on Cultural Property Protection was organized in 1977 to help improve security measures in museums, libraries, galleries and cultural centers.

The Art Loss Register is the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art, where you can register a possession, check to see if an item has been declared missing, and report a missing object. They also issue bulletins altering the art community about stolen works so that they can be watched for in the market. The Association for Research into Crimes against Art is a non-profit organization that consults with museums, public institutions, places of worship and international police and governments on art protection and art recovery. It’s members include top officials at art institutions around the globe and it provides comprehensive information and research on art crimes.

The “largest art heist in modern history” took place in 1990 at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. Thirteen pieces were taken, including Vermeer’s “The Concert” ( the most valuable stolen painting in the world), two Rembrandt paintings and a drawing, and five drawings by Edgar Degas. The event is examined in the 2009 award-winning documentary STOLEN. The works have yet to be recovered.

Although art thievery is no laughing matter, the 2009 film The Maiden Heist tells the lighthearted and fictitious story of a museum robbery. Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman and William H. Macy star as three museum security guards who conspire to steal artworks with which they have fallen in love and are being transferred to a museum in Denmark. The characters are endearing in their amateur caper, but, as the saying goes: “Do not try this at home.”

Further Reading: Art Theft Stories from Luxist.com

Greatest Heists in Art History The Black Market – The Other Business of Art Art theft’s less than glamorous reality Great Art Thefts Of The 20th Century Footnotes: 1. Association for Research into Crimes Against Art. Media Pack. ARCA. Web. 26 July 2010. . 2. Kennedy, Randy. “Art Theft’s Less than Glamorous Reality.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 2008. Web. 26 July 2010.