Which Art Museums Have Been Hit by Dramatic Heists?

Stealing a priceless work of art may be a great premise for a thriller film, but it is also a multi-billion-dollar business that often doubles as a money laundering front for international terrorists or organized crime groups, National Geographic reports. So what museums have been the sites of some of the greatest, real-world art heists?

The Louvre

The Mona Lisa is famous now, but it wasn’t always so well-known. In 1911, it was stolen from Paris’s Louvre Museum, which actually heightened its notoriety. The museum hired handyman Vincenzo Peruggia to install protective glass around the Mona Lisa, but instead, he hid overnight in a closet and walked out of the door the next morning with the painting under his smock. Police interviewed Peruggia twice during the investigation, but he wasn’t caught until 1913, when he tried to sell the painting to a Florentine art dealer.

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

This museum has been robbed twice. The first was in September 2011 and then again in October. An unidentified thief stole two small stone sculptures which had been displayed without protective cases. Luckily, one of the purloined pieces, a 2,500-year-old sandstone carving worth around $1 million, was found two years later in the home of a yoga instructor. She had bought it for a mere $1,000 with no knowledge that it had been stolen. The other sculpture is still missing.

But the more dramatic heist was back in 1972, when three armed robbers rappelled through a skylight. They overpowered and tied up three guards and then left the museum with 50 artworks, including 18 renowned paintings. This case is still unsolved.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The 1990 Gardner Museum robbery is the single largest property theft in history. Thirteen works were stolen, including pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet. Altogether, the haul was worth a half-billion dollars. To gain entry, two men disguised as police officers buzzed at the door of the Boston museum, claiming they had gotten a noise complaint. They were let in, quickly overpowered and handcuffed the security guard, and then spent 81 minutes collecting their loot. They made two trips to the car. The case remains unsolved.