The Louvre, Paris
On August 21, 1911, one of the world's most iconic works of art, the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci's oil painting "Mona Lisa", was stolen from the Louvre in Paris.
The suspicion initially fell on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and the artist Pablo Picasso, but the perpetrator turned out to be an Italian glazier who had been commissioned to frame the museum's paintings and thus had good knowledge of the building.
The glazier hid the masterpiece in his home in Paris for two years before trying to sell the portrait to a Florentine art dealer who raised the alarm.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Early in the morning of September 4, 1972, three masked robbers, armed with automatic weapons and rifles, took advantage of repair work on the building to enter the museum through an unalarmed skylight.
The thieves disappeared with 18 paintings by, among others, Rembrandt, Brueghel the Elder, Rubens, Corot, and Delacroix, 40 pieces of jewelry, and other valuable objects. Only one painting and one piece of jewelry have been recovered.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Early in the morning of March 18, 1990, two men disguised as police officers deceived the staff at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and walked out with 13 works by masters such as Degas, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Manet.
The loot, estimated to be worth at least $500 million, has never been recovered despite a promise of a $10 million reward.
Vienna Museum of Fine Arts
The artist Benvenuto Cellini's golden sculpture "Salt Cellar" from 1543 disappeared from the Vienna Museum of Fine Arts at dawn on May 12, 2003. The thief, an expert on alarm systems, climbed up onto scaffolding erected for the restoration of the museum. When the alarm went off, the security guards ignored it, believing it had been triggered by mistake.
The sculpture, valued at more than 50 million euros, was found three years later, largely intact, in a box buried in a forest outside Vienna. The thief – who had unsuccessfully demanded a ransom of 10 million euros – turned himself in and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Munch Museum, Oslo
Two armed robbers in balaclavas stormed into the Munch Museum in Oslo in broad daylight on August 22, 2004. The artworks "The Scream" and "Madonna" were seized in the 50-second operation before the robbers fled in front of shocked visitors.
Two years later, the paintings were recovered, damaged, and three men were convicted of involvement in the theft.
