Stolen or lost works of art Part 4
1970’s
In 1972, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art witnessed its biggest art theft in Canada’s history.
Armed intruders took figurines, jewellery and 18 paintings worth over $2 million.
The paintings included works by Gainsborough and Delacroix, along with a rare Rembrandt landscape.
Amazingly, over 50 years later these great artworks have never been found.
In 2003, the Globe and Mail newspaper estimated that the Rembrandt alone would be worth $1 million today.
1980’s
On 28 October 1985, during opening hours, at least 5 gunmen entered the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris.
Two bought tickets and entered as visitors. They detained the guards and visitors at gunpoint while the other three thieves grabbed the paintings.
In total they stole nine paintings from the gallery’s collection. Among them were Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet, which gave it’s name to the impressionist movement in France at the end of the 19th century.
In addition further paintings by Monet, Renoir, Naruse, and Berthe Morisot valued at a total of $12 million were stolen.
The paintings were later recovered in Corsica in December 1990.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/28/arts/nine-paintings-stolen-in-paris-by-5- gunmen.html
1990’s
On May 7, 1994, Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from a museum in Oslo.
Two thieves broke through a window of the National Gallery, cut a wire holding the painting to the wall and left a note reading “Thanks for the bad security!”
The Scream by Edvard Munch