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The recent theft at the Louvre in Paris marks the latest in a series of high-profile museum robberies targeting priceless art and artifacts.
Previously, the most infamous incident was the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Initial suspicions pointed to poet Guillaume Apollinaire and artist Pablo Picasso, but the real culprit was Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian glazier familiar with the museum’s layout. He concealed the masterpiece in his Paris residence for two years before trying to sell it to a dealer in Florence. The plan failed, resulting in Perugia serving seven months in jail.
In 1972, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was robbed during a holiday break. Three masked thieves exploited a temporarily deactivated skylight—usually alarmed but unmonitored during repairs—and stole 18 artworks, including pieces attributed to Rembrandt, Brueghel the Elder, Rubens, and Romantic artists like Corot and Delacroix. Only one artwork and a piece of jewelry have been recovered so far.
Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum faced a dramatic heist in 1990 when two masked men impersonating police officers tricked staff and stole 13 masterpieces, including works by Degas, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Manet. The stolen collection is valued at over half a billion dollars and remains missing despite a reward offer.
In 2003, a thief with expertise in security systems pilfered Benvenuto Cellini’s “Salt Cellar,” a golden sculpture from Vienna’s Museum of Fine Arts. The thief used scaffolding from ongoing renovations to access the piece, which was later found nearly intact in a forest near Vienna after he demanded a ransom. The perpetrator was sentenced to five years in prison.
Oslo’s Munch Museum was targeted in 2004 when two armed robbers, disguised in masks, snatched “The Scream” and “Madonna” in just 50 seconds before escaping. These works were later recovered damaged, with three individuals convicted.
Paris’s Museum of Modern Art lost five valuable works in 2010, including pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani, and Leger, during a security breach exploited by a thief who intended only to steal a Leger painting but took advantage of system failures to pick up multiple artworks. The thief was sentenced to eight years.
Germany’s Dresden Castle’s Green Vault was robbed in 2019, with jewels valued at over €113 million stolen. Although much of the treasure was recovered, some items, including a diamond-encrusted sword, are still missing, and five criminals involved in the heist were convicted in 2023.
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