On Sunday, a group of at least three masked professional thieves smashed into the first-floor gallery of the Louvre in Paris, stealing a series of priceless jewels, including pieces once belonging to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie.
There were nine pieces reportedly stolen in the heist, including a necklace, a brooch, and tiara that si thought have belonged to Eugénie. While the authorities are still working to uncover how it occurred—and working to chase down leads—it is clear that Sunday’s robbery is one of the most brazen art heists in recent memory. But it is far from the only one.
Art thefts have occured throughout history, no doubt due to the “incalculable” value they often carry. One of the oldest such thefts occcurred in 1473, when Polish pirates boarded a ship that was en route to Florence. They walked away with Hans Memling’s The Last Judgement (1467–71), an intricately rendered triptych envisioning the second coming of Christ, and hauled it back to their homeland, in what is now considered the first recorded art heist. The painting today resides at the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland, and Italians have been seeking its recovery ever since.
The Memling heist is an example of how significantly a theft can transform an artwork’s history forever—and it is hardly the only piece throughout history to have been permanently altered in this way. Although technology has gotten more sophisticated and the means by which heists are committed have changed, burglaries of the world’s greatest artworks continue to be executed often, effectively adding new and bizarre chapters to the annals of art history in the process.
The following list surveys the 25 greatest art heists of all time. They have concerned artworks from throughout art history, from centuries-old archaeological objects to contemporary masterworks, and they have involved a range of shadowy figures, from amateurs to security experts to possibly even organized crime syndicates. In some cases, the works have been recovered, while other heists have ended with the works being lost permanently.
For the sake of this list, heists were defined as concerning public institutions and private collections. Plundering, looting, and other forms of art theft will be considered in a separate list to follow.
Below, a look at the top 25 art heists of all time.
