Some people just ca n’t keep their hand off other people ’s affair – even the humankind ’s greatestart . artistry thief take their loot from museums , position of adoration , and private residences . Because they would have trouble selling the fruit of their labor on the overt market – auction bridge menage and gallery run to avoid stolen works – art burglars often either keep the art for themselves or seek to redeem the blistering prop back to the original owner . Among the major robberies in the past hundred old age are these daring thefts of very expensive nontextual matter ( economic value reckon at the time of the theft ) .
1. Boston, March 1990: $300 million
2. Oslo, August 2004: $120 million
Two armed and masked thieves threatened workers at the Munch Museum during a daring daylight theft . They stole a pair of Edvard Munch paintings , " The Scream " and " The Madonna , " estimated at a compound value of 100 million euros . In May 2006 , authorities convicted three work force who received between four and eight year in jail . The painting were recover three month later .
3. Paris, August 1911: $100 million
In the world ’s most notorious nontextual matter theft to date , Vincenzo Peruggia , an employee of the Louvre , stole Leonardo da Vinci ’s " Mona Lisa " from the storeyed museum in the eye of Paris . Peruggia simply cover in a closet , snap up the painting once alone in the way , blot out it under his long smock , and walked out of the celebrated museum after it had closed . The larceny turned the moderately popular " Mona Lisa " into the considerably - cognize painting in the world . Police questioned Pablo Picasso and Gallic poet Guillaume Apollinaire about the crime , but they find the real thief – and theMona Lisa– two years later when Peruggia essay to trade it to an art principal in Florence .
Read about more outrageous art theft on the next page .
Notorious Art Thefts, 4-7
These notorious artistic production thefts , as well as the ones on the previous page , ask some of the most worthful works of artistry in the world .
4. Oslo, February 1994: $60-75 million
" The Scream " has been a pop target for stealer in Norway . On the day the 1994 Winter Olympics began in Lillehammer , a dissimilar variation of Munch ’s famous employment ( he painted four ) was taken from Oslo ’s National Art Museum . In less than one minute , the crook came in through a window , cut the conducting wire holding up the house painting , and left through the same window . They seek to redeem the painting to the Norwegian government , but they had give a piece of the frame at a bus stop – a cue that facilitate authorities recover the painting within a few month . Four man were convict of the offence in January 1996 .
5. Scotland, August 2003: $65 million
Blending in patently has its advantages for art stealer . Two man joined a tour of Scotland ’s Drumlanrig Castle , tame a guard , and made off with Leonardo da Vinci ’s " Madonna of the Yarnwinder . " alarm around the art were not set during the daylight , and the thieves deter tourists from interfere , reportedly telling them : " Do n’t worry . . . we ’re the police . This is just pattern . " The painting was reclaim in 2007 , but the dodgy thieves remain unidentified .
6. Stockholm, December 2000: $30 million
Caught ! Eight criminals each got up to six and one-half years behind bars for conspire to take a Rembrandt and twoRenoirs– all of them eventually recover – from Stockholm ’s National Museum . You have to give the three masked men who in reality grab the paintings credit for a dramatic going . In a scenery redolent of an action movie , they fled the scene by motorboat . police force unraveled the plot of land after recovering one of the picture during an unrelated drug investigation four months after the theft .
7. Amsterdam, December 2002: $30 million
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:
Helen Davies , Marjorie Dorfman , Mary Fons , Deborah Hawkins , Martin Hintz , Linnea Lundgren , David Priess , Julia Clark Robinson , Paul Seaburn , Heidi Stevens , and Steve Theunissen
