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The greatest heists in art history

November 17, 2009 - 3:57am — Bibliofuture

The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa

The theft was masterminded by Eduardo de Valfierno, a con-man who had six forgeries of the Mona Lisa painted and shipped to various parts of the world before the theft took place, knowing customs would not be looking for the famous painting (it having not been stolen yet). Having lined up buyers beforehand, he then hired Vincenzo Peruggia, a carpenter who had helped create the Mona Lisa's protective case, to hide in the museum overnight with several accomplices. They simply walked out with the painting in the morning, and once the story of the theft was reported worldwide, Valfierno sold his six fake Mona Lisas to his six buyers, each of whom through they were getting the real deal.

Full entry here.

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November 17, 2009 - 4:11am — Bibliofuture

The Gardner Heist

The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft

One museum, two thieves, and the Boston underworld—the story behind the lost Gardner masterpieces and the art detective who swore to get them back

Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. They stole a dozen masterpieces, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. But after thousands of leads, hundreds of interviews, and a $5-million reward, not a single painting has been recovered. Worth a total of $500 million, the missing masterpieces have become the Holy Grail of the art world and one of the nation's most extraordinary unsolved mysteries.

Art detective Harold Smith worked on the theft for years, and after his death, reporter Ulrich Boser inherited his case files. Traveling deep into the art underworld, Boser explores Smith's unfinished leads and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including the brilliant rock 'n' roll art thief; the golden-boy gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse; the deadly mobster James "Whitey" Bulger; and the Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner, who stipulated in her will that nothing should ever be changed in her museum, a provision followed so closely that the empty frames of the stolen works still hang on the walls. Boser eventually cracks one of the biggest mysteries of the case and uncovers the identities of the men who robbed the museum nearly two decades ago. A tale of art and greed, of obsession and loss, The Gardner Heist is as compelling as the stolen masterpieces themselves.

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November 17, 2009 - 4:10am — Bibliofuture

The Rescue Artist

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece

In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's Scream. It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective.

The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries readers deep inside the art underworld -- and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself, a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm whose hunt for a purloined treasure would either cap an illustrious career or be the fiasco that would haunt him forever.

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