The Most Stolen Paintings in History: 12 Crimes
The most stolen paintings in history include the Mona Lisa, The Scream and one Rembrandt portrait taken four separate times. Twelve thefts, two still unsolved, and the theft that accidentally made the most famous painting on earth.
The crime sheet
One altarpiece has been stolen, in whole or in part, around 13 times. A panel is still missing.
One theft created the fame of the world’s most famous painting.
One masterwork spent decades inside a farmhouse wall, wrapped in ivy.
The biggest unsolved heist emptied 13 works from one museum in 81 minutes.
And one small Rembrandt has been stolen so often police nicknamed it the takeaway.
1 | The Mona Lisa (stolen 1911)
Vincenzo Peruggia, a former Louvre workman, walked out with her under his smock on a Monday morning. For two years she lived in a trunk in his Paris room.
The theft, the manhunt and the trial made her a global celebrity. Before 1911 she was one Leonardo among many; the empty wall drew bigger crowds than the painting had. The full story is in why the Mona Lisa is so famous.
2 | The Ghent Altarpiece (stolen about 13 times)
The most stolen artwork in history. Napoleon took panels, Prussia bought looted wings, the Nazis hid the whole thing in a salt mine.
In 1934 the Just Judges panel vanished in a ransom scheme and was never recovered. Belgium still investigates. The altarpiece’s impossible survival is the heart of Van Eyck, the mission that changed painting.
3 | The Scream, Edvard Munch (1994 and 2004)
Stolen twice in a decade. In 1994, thieves left a note thanking the National Gallery for the poor security. In 2004, gunmen tore a version off the wall of the Munch Museum in daylight.
Both came back, one with water damage that conservators left visible. The double heist is in has The Scream ever been stolen.
4 | The Nativity, Caravaggio (1969, still missing)
Cut from its frame in a Palermo oratory one October night. Sicilian informants have blamed the mafia for 50 years: hidden, damaged, eaten by pigs, burned. Nobody knows.
It is the most wanted missing painting on earth, with an FBI valuation in the tens of millions. I follow every lead in the mafia and the missing Caravaggio.
5 | The Concert, Vermeer (1990, still missing)
On 18 March 1990, two men dressed as police tied up the guards of the Gardner Museum in Boston and left with 13 works in 81 minutes. The Concert was among them.
With roughly 34 surviving Vermeers on earth, it is often called the most valuable stolen object in the world. The empty frames still hang in Boston. Vermeer’s tiny surviving output is explained in my guide to Vermeer.
6 | The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt (1990, still missing)
Taken in the same Gardner heist: Rembrandt’s only seascape, the artist himself clinging to the rigging among the apostles.
A 10 million dollar reward has produced nothing in over three decades. The painter who put himself in the boat is in my guide to Rembrandt.
7 | Jacob de Gheyn III, Rembrandt (stolen four times)
A portrait the size of a sheet of paper, stolen from London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1966, 1973, 1981 and 1983. The press calls it the takeaway Rembrandt.
It has been found in a luggage rack, under a bench in a graveyard, and on the back of a bicycle. It always comes home.
8 | Portrait of a Lady, Gustav Klimt (1997 to 2019)
Stolen from a gallery in Piacenza, Italy. For 22 years, nothing. Then in 2019, gardeners clearing ivy on the gallery’s own wall found a metal panel, and behind it, the Klimt in a trash bag.
Whether it sat there 22 years or was returned in secret remains open. The painter is in my guide to Gustav Klimt.
9 | Two Van Goghs from Amsterdam (2002 to 2016)
Thieves went through the roof of the Van Gogh Museum in 2002 and took two early canvases. The trail died for 14 years.
Italian police found them in 2016 in a Camorra boss’s farmhouse near Naples, wrapped in cloth behind a wall. The painter everyone wants a piece of is in my guide to Van Gogh.
10 | Madonna of the Yarnwinder, Leonardo circle (2003)
Two men posing as tourists overpowered a guide at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland and drove off with the Leonardo in a stolen car.
It surfaced four years later at a law office in Glasgow. The world’s appetite for anything Leonardo is explained in my guide to Leonardo da Vinci.
11 | The Boy in the Red Vest, Cezanne (2008)
Armed men in ski masks hit the Buhrle collection in Zurich at closing time and took four paintings worth about 160 million dollars, the Cezanne among them.
It was recovered in Serbia in 2012, in the false roof of a parked car. The painter modern art cannot do without is in my guide to Cezanne.
12 | Woman in Gold, Gustav Klimt (seized 1938)
Not a burglary: a state theft. The Nazis seized Adele Bloch Bauer’s golden portrait from her family in Vienna, and Austria kept it for 60 years.
Her niece Maria Altmann sued a country and won in 2006. The whole legal war is in Klimt’s Woman in Gold.
The heists I could not fit here
Museum robbery is its own genre: tunnels, helicopters, inside jobs, ransom notes. I tell the biggest ones, minute by minute, in Grand Theft Museum.
Stolen art, the questions people ask
What is the most stolen painting ever? The Ghent Altarpiece, taken in whole or in part around 13 times over six centuries.
What is the biggest unsolved art heist? The Gardner Museum, Boston, 1990: 13 works including a Vermeer and a Rembrandt, none recovered.
Was the Mona Lisa really stolen? Yes, in 1911, by a Louvre workman who kept her in a trunk for two years. The theft built her fame.
Are stolen paintings ever recovered? Often, but slowly. The Van Goghs took 14 years, the Klimt 22, and the Just Judges panel is still missing since 1934.
Why do thieves steal famous paintings they cannot sell? Ransom, underworld collateral and prestige. A famous canvas works like a criminal banknote.
One number to close: the reward for the Gardner works stands at 10 million dollars, the largest ever offered by a private institution, and it has been unclaimed since 1990.