For decades, thieves have been slipping past alarms and guards at museums across the world to steal jewels and paintings meant to outlast us all.
They’ve scaled walls. They’ve dropped through skylights. They’ve disguised themselves as police officers, curators, even janitors to sneak in and out undetected with valuable artwork and artifacts.
On Sunday, art thieves entered the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre in Paris and left with eight items of jewelry said to be of “incalculable” worth. Among them: a crown worn by Empress Eugénie, set with 212 pearls and nearly 3,000 diamonds.
The theft joined a long line of breaches at museums large and small, pilfering swords, Renoirs and even the Mona Lisa.
Here are some of the better known thefts:
The Mona Lisa Heist, 1911
One summer day, Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker at the Louvre, tucked the Mona Lisa beneath his coat and carried it into the Paris streets. For two years, the painting remained missing, increasing its fame around the world. When the painting reappeared after Peruggia tried to unload it in Italy, Mona Lisa was no longer merely a portrait, but a legend.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, 1990
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