The China Mail - Louvre jewel theft: latest in string of museum heists

Here are some precedents:

- The Mona Lisa, The Louvre -

The Louvre, the world's most visited art museum, has been targeted more than once over the years.

The most audacious incident was the theft of Leonardo de Vinci's iconic "Mona Lisa" on August 21, 1911.

Suspicion initially fell on poet Guillaume Apollinaire and artist Pablo Picasso.

But the culprit turned out to be an Italian glazier who had helped frame the museum's paintings and knew his way round the building.

Glazier Vincenzo Perugia hid the Renaissance masterpiece in his Paris home for two years before trying to sell the portrait to a Florentine dealer.

The risky venture backfired. The dealer raised the alarm and Vincenzo was jailed for seven months.

- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts -

In the early hours of September 4, 1972 -- Canada's Labour Day holiday -- three masked robbers armed with machine guns and rifles took advantage of building repair work to slip into the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts via a skylight.

The skylight was usually secured by an alarm but that had been deactivated while the roof was being mended.

The thieves made off with 18 invaluable paintings and around 40 items of jewellery and precious objects worth a total two million dollars at the time. Their value has skyrocketed since.

The works stolen during the Skylight Caper -- which included paintings attributed to 17th-century Flemish masters Rembrandt, Brueghel the Elder and Rubens, and 19th-century French Romantics Corot and Delacroix.

Only one painting and one piece of jewellery are thought to have been recovered.

- Boston's Gardner Museum -

Early on the morning of March 18, 1990, two men disguised as police officers tricked staff at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and walked off with 13 works by grand masters including Degas, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Manet.

The haul, estimated to be worth at least $500 million, has never been recovered despite a 2017 promise of a $10-million reward.

- Cellini's 'Salt Cellar' -

The "Salt Cellar", a golden sculpture made by Florentine artist Benvenuto Cellini in 1543 for King of France Francis I, disappeared from Vienna's Museum of Fine Arts at dawn on May 12, 2003.

The thief, an expert in alarm systems, climbed scaffolding erected for the restoration of the museum to make off with the masterpiece.

When the museum alarms went off, security guards ignored them, believing they were false.

The sculpture, valued at more than €50 million, was found three years later, almost intact, in a crate buried in a forest northwest of Vienna.

Investigators tracked it down after the thief, who had unsuccessfully demanded a ransom of €10 million, gave himself up. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

- Oslo Munch Museum -

Two armed robbers in balaclavas burst into the Munch museum in Oslo in broad daylight on August 22, 2004.

They seized two major artworks — "The Scream" and "Madonna" — in a 50-second operation, before fleeing in front of stunned visitors.

Two years later the two masterpieces were found, damaged, in mysterious circumstances. Three men were jailed.

- Museum of Modern Art, Paris -

Five works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Leger, with an estimated combined value of more than €100 million, disappeared from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris on May 20, 2010.

The thief, who had initially only set out to steal Leger's "Still Life With Candlestick", capitalised on a major breakdown in the security system, including motion detectors not working, to walk off with four other major works.

None were recovered, although the "Spiderman" robber was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2017.

- Dresden's Green Vault museum -

Thieves stole 18th-century jewels worth €113 million from the Green Vault museum within Germany’s Dresden Castle on November 25, 2019.

Five members of a well-known Berlin criminal family network were found guilty in 2023 over the audacious night-time raid.

Much of the treasure, including a diamond-encrusted sword, was recovered but other jewels are feared lost.

B.Carter--ThChM