Hi YouTube, it's Akilah, obviously, and if you click on my face, you can check out my
channel, SmoothieFreak.
But this is Mental Floss on YouTube. Did you know that art theft has caused about FOUR
TO SIX BILLION DOLLARS in losses around the world? And that the only more costly crimes
are drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms dealing? Plus, the average recovery rate
for stolen art is only about two to six percent.
Today I’m going to tell you about some art heists. So let's get started.
[Intro]
In 1990, two men posing as police demanded to be let into Boston’s Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum. They tied the two museum guards up in the basement, then RAIDED the museum.
In the largest property theft in U.S. history, the pair collected over SIX HUNDRED MILLION
DOLLARS worth of art, including five pieces by Degas. Not a single painting has been recovered.
Also in Boston, Myles J. Connor Jr. stole a Rembrandt portrait from the Museum of Fine
Arts in 1975 on the same day jurors were being picked for his trial in another burglary case!
Nine months later, Connor brokered the painting’s return for a reduced sentence in that other
case. He ended up with a four-year sentence rather than fifteen years... He was in jail
at the time of the Gardner Museum heist, but some suspect Connor to have somehow been involved.
There are four different versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream, so it has *technically*
been stolen twice…. In 1994, it was taken from Oslo's National Gallery then recovered
three months later. On August 22, 2004, a different version was stolen from Oslo's Munch
Museum in broad daylight. Armed thieves took it right off the wall. Police found the getaway
car containing two empty frames, but the painting was recovered two years later.
Also on August 22 --this time in 1911, Louvre handyman Vincenzo Perugia stole the Mona Lisa.
Suspects included J.P. Morgan and Pablo Picasso, which made the crime AND the painting infamous,
so it was impossible for Perugia to sell it off quickly. Two years later, Perugia tried
to sell the Mona Lisa to an art dealer in Florence, who promptly turned him in. Perugia
was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Another da Vinci piece, Madonna with the Yarnwinder, was stolen in 2003 when two men, posing as
tourists at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland, used an ax to grab it during a tour. Security
cameras captured them leaving the castle with a $50 million painting casually tucked under
one arm. In 2007, officers recovered the painting and arrested four men.
For 30 years, Hungarian Elmyr de Hory sold forgeries of paintings by artists like Picasso,
Matisse, and Degas. His forgeries were SO detailed that they could trick extremely experienced
art buyers. He attracted his own following and, eventually, his own forgers!
On August 13, 2011, a Rembrandt drawing (worth around $250,000) was lifted from the Marina
del Rey Ritz-Carlton. The hotel’s curator was actually right there, but distracted by
a guest. The piece was recovered two days later in a pastor’s office in Encino, CA.
He wasn’t a suspect.
In 1937, a private collector loaned Renoir’s “Landscape on the Banks of the Seine”
to the Baltimore Museum of Art where it was stolen in 1951. In 2012, it resurfaced at
a West Virginia flea market when a woman paid $7 for it (it’s worth at least $75,000).
A judge ordered that the painting be returned to the Baltimore museum.
“The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,” a 24-panel piece by Jan van Eyck, has only had
23 panels since 1934 when a panel, known as "Just Judges," was stolen from a cathedral
in Ghent. (The police showed up late to the crime scene and didn’t stay long because
they were in the middle of investigating a cheese theft.) But we all know the real cheese
theft culprit.
Thirteen subsequent ransom notes sent to the bishop promised its return in exchange for
one million Belgian francs. Shockingly, the bishop wasn’t interested in negotiating
with the criminals. The piece remains missing.
A decade after he died, Texan Joe Meador became the prime suspect in the 1945 theft of a collection
of medieval artworks and manuscripts from the town of Quedlinburg. The pieces were moved
to a mine shaft during World War II which is where they disappeared from - just days
after American troops, including Meador, occupied the area.
In December 2011, a bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth was stolen from its perch in London’s
Dolevitch Park. Investigators speculated that the culprits where metal thieves rather than
art thieves. Once melted down for scrap, the piece would be worth about TWELVE HUNDRED
AND 50 DOLLARS. In its art form? More than EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. I wonder how
much money we'd get if we melted down this belt buckle?
Something similar happened in December 2005 when a Henry Moore sculpture was stolen from
the Henry Moore Foundation estate in Hertfordshire. Thieves used a crane and truck to remove the
sculpture quickly. It was originally worth $5 million, but the thieves went the scrapyard
route and received around TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
In 2006, during Rio de Janeiro’s annual Carnival, four armed men were able to grab
approximately $50 million in paintings from the Chacara do Céu art museum, including
works by Picasso, Monet, and Dali. Then, they managed to disappear into the crowd of partygoers.
This made the FBI’s Top Ten Art Crimes.
Speaking of Monet, a cardboard copy of “Beach in Pourville “ was left in place of the
original and almost fooled authorities at the National Museum of Poland, who were unknowingly
robbed in September 2000. It took police a decade to catch the thief, who had the original
artwork hanging on his wall.
In April 2003, at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, thieves eluded alarms, guards,
and security cameras while the museum was closed. They took off with paintings from
Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Picasso. All three were recovered in a public bathroom less than
a quarter mile away with this note: “The intention was not to steal, only to highlight
the woeful security.”
On May 20, 2010, a burglar took five paintings from the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. He
broke a padlock and smashed a window to take paintings by Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani
-- worth more than $100 million. Officials partially blamed the incident on the new alarm
system, which wasn’t functioning properly.
In 1991, what could have been one of the art world’s most expensive heists turned out
to be one of its shortest lived instead. Two men stole 20 paintings from the Van Gogh Museum,
only to abandon all of them in the get-a-way car 35 minutes later.
The Van Gogh Museum was also a target in December 2002 when burglars took two paintings. Thanks
to DNA evidence and eyewitness accounts, the men were quickly caught and sentenced to more
than three years in prison apiece. The paintings haven’t been recovered.
In July 2002, five paintings were stolen from National Fine Arts Museum in Paraguay, which
was hosting one of the biggest exhibitions in its history. The thieves had rented a shop
80 feet from the museum then recruited people to help them dig a 10-foot tunnel into the
museum.
In 2010, thieves stormed Stockholm’s National museum with a machine gun, stole $30 million
worth of paintings (a Rembrandt and two Renoirs), and escaped on a speedboat. They distracted
police with decoy bombs, making the heist possible. The paintings were eventually recovered
and eight men were convicted. Here on Mental Floss, we have our own decoy bomb.
On February 10, 2008, three masked men arrived at the entrance of the E. G. Bührle Collection
in Zurich, forced employees onto the ground, and stole paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Van
Gogh and Monet, worth an estimated $163 million. Two of the paintings were found about a week
later, in a car parked in a nearby hospital parking lot. The Cézanne and Degas paintings
were recovered separately in 2012.
In August 1961, Kempton Bunton climbed through an unlocked window of a restroom in London’s
National Gallery and allegedly stole Francisco Goya’s “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington.”
Bunton was a 61-year-old retired bus driver who stole it in protest of the government’s
decision to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the painting in Britain. He confessed
in 1965, but was only convicted of stealing the frame, and served three months. The story
got weirder in 2012 when Bunton’s son confessed to the crime, even though his father had already
been tried. No charges were filed.
On an early December 1966 morning, someone took a drill to a door at London’s Dulwich
Picture Gallery. They stole eight pieces—including Rembrandt’s “Jacob de Gheyn III.” All
of the paintings were recovered less than a week later. This same painting was stolen
(and recovered) three more times. It’s holds the Guinness World Record for world’s most
frequently stolen artwork.
In 1946, three paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe were stolen from An American Place, a gallery
run by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. She didn’t want to upset him, so O’Keeffe
didn’t report them missing until 1972. In 1976, the paintings were sold to the Princeton
Gallery of Fine Art. O’Keeffe filed a lawsuit for their return and, though the statute of
limitations had expired, the court sided with her.
On November 17, 1969, thieves picked the lock of art dealer Stephen Hahn’s gallery in
New York City and stole seven paintings, including works by Cassatt and Monet, worth approximately
$500,000. Ironically, while his gallery was being robbed, Hahn was with the board of directors
at the Art Directors Association of America...discussing art theft.
Finally, I return to my salon to tell you about the largest robbery in Israel’s history.
In 1983, 106 paintings, artifacts, and watches were stolen from the L.A. Mayer Museum for
Islamic Art in Jerusalem. This included a $30 million pocket watch made by Abraham-Louis
Breguet for Marie Antoinette. In 2004, notorious criminal Naaman Diller admitted the theft
to his wife on his deathbed. She was convicted of receiving stolen property in 2010, and
sentenced to five years' probation and 300 hours of community service. One of the many
reasons to not marry notorious criminals.
Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of all of these
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Well, people have used some form of wallet basically since coins started becoming currency
and they needed somewhere to stash them. The modern bi-fold wallet with all of the card
slots became standardized in the early 1950s when credit cards were first introduced.
If you have a mind-blowing question you’d like answered, leave it in comments and we’ll
try to answer it. Thanks for watching, I'm Akilah, and don't forget to be awesome.