Ladies and gentlemen, this is a robbery
Forget the gentlemen thieves of the past. This is the period of the ‘smash and grab’ as seen in the latest art heist in Italy
It is not for nothing that the head of Art Recovery International has lamented the current “smash and grab period” of art thievery. The masked men who broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Italy’s Parma region and made off with three paintings — a Renoir, a Cézanne and a Matisse — showed little patience for the finesse and style that seem to have characterised such endeavours in the past. They used a crowbar to force open an entrance and were in and out in under three minutes.
Gentlemen thieves like Thomas Crown and Arsène Lupin may be mere products of the imagination, but art history is replete with stories of purloiners who combined their taste for the rare and beautiful — and the profits they bring — with a sense of mischief and real love for the art. Take the two Norwegian burglars who stole Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” from the National Museum in Oslo, leaving behind a courteous note: “A thousand thanks for your poor security”. Or consider the two men dressed as policemen who walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and made the now infamous announcement, “Gentlemen, this is a robbery”, making off with 13 works.
Then there was Stéphane Breitwieser, art thief extraordinaire who walked off with pieces from nearly 200 museums — simply because they moved him. No smashed glass, hold-ups or bloodshed were involved, just good taste and chutzpah. His luck turned in 2001 when his mother, angered by his criminal behaviour, disposed of his nearly $1.25-billion collection, and Breitwieser was arrested. The smashers-and-grabbers of today may not execute their crimes with quite the same insouciance or love, but their desire to turn their loot to profit at least keeps alive the hope that someday the priceless works will be found and restored.
