ARTSY THIEFS

When was the Mona Lisa stolen? 10 incredible art heists

Image: Eric TERRADE

Despite the fact that stealing art is arguably just as bad as any common crime, art heists have always captivated the imagination of the public, and the complex feats of these sophisticated robbers are depicted in countless movies and books. These audacious crimes often involve meticulous planning, intricate schemes, and sometimes, even a dash of glamour.

From masterpieces swiped in seconds to robberies that still baffle authorities, here are 10 of the most sensational museum and artwork thefts that have captured the world's attention.

Image: Kameron Kincade

Who said pirates couldn’t be art lovers? The daring theft of Hans Memling’s "The Last Judgment" was the first art heist to be recorded in history, and it took place in the sea, of all places. The religious painting was aboard a ship bound for Florence, Italy, when it was boarded by a Polish privateer called Paul Beneke, who proceeded to steal the painting among other valuables. The best part is that the painting ended up being blatantly displayed in the Basilica of the Assumption in Gdańsk, despite Italy’s efforts to get it back.

Image: Michael Fousert

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is today the most famous painting in the world, so it's no surprise that it's been the target of theft. But in 1911 few people had heard of it, and the legendary painting was by no means as well guarded as now. When an Italian handyman was contracted by the museum he impulsively stole the masterpiece, hiding it in his apartment for over two years before it was recovered in Italy. Curiously, this theft was what actually made the painting world famous, so it wasn’t all bad in the end.

Image: George Ciobra

In 1961, Britain’s national hero went missing from the National Gallery in London, and authorities were baffled. The thief turned out to be a retired bus driver called Kempton Bunton, who climbed through a window of the National Gallery, grabbed the Duke, and proceeded to straightforwardly leave the premises with the painting under his arm. Maybe museum security measures weren’t exactly bulletproof back then.

Image: Hanyang Zhang

In one of the most infamous art heists in history, thieves disguised as police officers stormed Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, gagging the museum’s security guards and making off with 13 priceless artworks, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Degas. To this day, the pieces - valued at hundreds of millions of dollars - remain missing and the museum displays empty frames where the paintings used to be, in a haunting reminder of the unfortunate incident.

Image: Steven van Deursen

In 1994, two men broke into Oslo's National Gallery, making off with Edvard Munch's "The Scream." The thieves even mocked the museum’s anti-theft measures with a note that said: "Thanks for the poor security." While the painting was recovered later that year, that was not the last of the adventures of Munch’s iconic piece. Ten years later, in a brazen daylight robbery, armed thieves stormed Oslo's Munch Museum, snatching "The Scream" again together with "Madonna," another painting by the same artist. Again, the paintings were recovered but suffered some damage during the whole ordeal.

Image: Frans Ruiter

In 2002, during early morning hours, two thieves made use of a ladder to break into the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam through the roof. In a lightning-fast robbery, they stole two paintings and fled: Vincent van Gogh’s "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," valued at $30 million dollars. Fortunately, both pieces were recovered in 2016, but the theft highlighted the vulnerability of even the most prestigious institutions.

Image: Meizhi Lang

In a bold overnight heist, a lone thief broke into Paris's Modern Art Museum and made off with five paintings worth an estimated €100 million. In a Hollywood-worthy move, the man entered the gallery by removing a glass pane without breaking it and still managed to elude the three guards on duty inside. The burglar, aptly nicknamed "Spiderman" for his acrobatic feats, was captured afterward, but the paintings were unfortunately never recovered.

Image: Diane Picchiottino

Seven artworks, including pieces by Picasso, Matisse, and Monet, were stolen from Rotterdam's Kunsthal Museum in a meticulously planned heist. The museum’s alarm system went off during the robbery, but the thieves escaped before the police arrived. The thieves were eventually caught, but the paintings are still missing - and authorities suspect they were destroyed by the mother of one of the thieves in an effort to protect her son.

Image: rc.xyz NFT gallery

While not focused on art, this audacious heist involved the theft of millions of pounds worth of jewels and other valuables from safe deposit boxes in London's Hatton Garden district. The theft was meticulously planned by a group of six elderly men - all experienced thieves - earning them the nickname of "Bad Grandpas." But it seems that crime never pays, as they were all quickly arrested afterward.

Image: Nodir Khalilov

In 2019, the Green Vault museum in Dresden suffered a devastating blow when thieves infiltrated its Jewel Room, making off with priceless jewels and artifacts dating back to the 18th century. The thieves not only disabled alarms and streetlights by burning down a power box but also had to cut through iron bars and a reinforced window to gain entry, showing that there was quite a bit of planning behind the theft. Despite a series of arrests being made in connection to the robbery, only a portion of the stolen items were recovered.

Evolution of terms

Original names of everyday things that we left behind

Would you know what to give a person if they asked you to pass them the "clicker"? And would you say that you know how to safely handle a "range"? Some objects we see every day had very different names in their early days. So we’ve made a list of nostalgic terms that we stopped using over time. See if you know them all!

Why would you call a remote control a clicker? Simple: because of the sound it made when used. The original versions weren’t even electronic; instead, some used mechanical hammers that emitted a high-pitched click to signal the TV and control it remotely.

Before the devices we know today, shaving was a delicate art performed with straight blades. These were known as cut-throat razors, for obvious reasons.

Later, popularized by King C. Gillette in the early 1900s, the safety razor featured a protective guard to prevent deep cuts and made shaving safer for home use. Today, we just call them "razors" or call them by their brand.

Did your grandparents ever tell you to "put on your galoshes"? During the 19th century, the term referred to rubber overshoes worn to protect regular shoes from rain and mud. As waterproof rubber footwear (what we now call rain boots) became more widespread, many people began using galoshes to refer to those as well.

Old refrigerators where people cooled their perishables were known as iceboxes. They looked like wooden cabinets with metal linings inside, and contained large blocks of ice, which were delivered regularly by icemen. The ice sat in a compartment at the top, keeping food cool as it slowly melted, with runoff collected in a tray underneath.

As with galoshes, the term icebox continued to be used even after electric refrigerators became the norm.

Long before denim and jeans became the go-to terms, these work pants were often called dungarees. The name was less a nod to style or cut than to durability and purpose.

The term comes from Dongri, a dockside village near Mumbai, India, where a coarse, durable cotton fabric was produced and exported by the British in the 17th century. When the blue, strong fabric we know as "denim" became widespread, it made sense to call these garments the same way rugged pants had always been called.

You might be thinking, "Don’t we still use that word?" Of course we do. But there was a time when very few homes on the block had the technology to receive phone calls at all.

During the late 20th century, as portable telephones became widespread, a new term was required to refer to the phones with physical cables connected to underground networks. Thus, the word landline emerged to differentiate them from mobile phones.

"Spectacles" might sound quaint today, but for a long time, it was the standard word for a vision-correcting device. Early lenses were handheld and were introduced in Europe in the late 13th century!

The switch to the term glasses began in the 20th century, as optical glass became the standard lens material, and gained popularity largely through colloquial shortening.

Before Spotify playlists and digital shuffles, music lovers gathered around a turntable spinning at the center of the room. This was the common term for the rotating platform used to play vinyl records. Today, as vinyl has made an unexpected comeback, the term is often replaced in casual speech by record player.

This is another word we still use frequently, though its meaning has shifted over time. When typewriters were a must in every office, people often referred to the entire machine simply as **the keyboard**—a classic example of synecdoche.

Of course, the term keyboard was carried over from typewriters, and now we use it to refer mostly to the QWERTY set of keys.

Range was once the common term for a large cooking appliance with multiple burners and compartments—in other words, a long, horizontal cooking surface that could "range" across different heat zones.

As gas and electric stoves became more compact and widely accessible in the 20th century, stove increasingly replaced range in everyday speech.

Today, the word wireless brings to mind Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-connected headphones. But many technologies were "wireless" long before that. Early radio, in fact, was commonly referred to as wireless.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, radio was known as wireless telegraphy because it allowed messages to be transmitted without physical wires. The term gradually faded as the technology evolved, and radio became the standard term by the 1930s.