By Rochelle Steinhaus
Court TV

Stolen works that have been recovered – or are still at large

FOUND

The Mona Lisa – Leonardo da Vinci

The famed work by Leonardo da Vinci was stolen from the Louvre in 1911. In the extensive investigation by French police that followed, even Pablo Picasso was questioned in connection with the robbery. Picasso had apparently unwittingly purchased two sculptures that had been stolen from the famed museum. Twenty-seven months after one of the most famous paintings in the world was stolen, the Louvre got the Mona Lisa back. Vincenzo Perugia of Italy tried to sell the work to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence for $100,000, saying he didn’t think a famous Italian painting should be kept in France. Da Vinci himself, however, had sold it to French King Francis I, which is how the work ultimately found a home in France.

Bouilloire et Fruits - Paul Cézanne

The Cézanne painting was stolen from its private American owners, the Bawkin family, in 1978. Two decades passed without a trace of the multi-million dollar painting, and the work’s owners had given up hope of ever recovering it.

Twenty years later, a suspicious insurance agent contacted the Art Loss Register and notified them that someone was trying to insure the painting. That’s when the organization, which maintains a registry of stolen works, informed them that the work had been stolen. With the help of police, the painting was back in the hands of its rightful owners in October, 1999.

It was later sold through a Sotheby’s auction for $29,319,170.

One Dollar Sign – Andy Warhol

A Los Angeles investment counselor was moving his original Andy Warhol painting “One Dollar Sign” to his new office. His assistant even warned the movers to be careful with the work because it was very valuable. When the painting never surfaced, the Los Angeles Police Department, which boasts one of the most aggressive art crime unit in the United States, posted information regarding the theft on its web site. Less than a year later, an unwitting buyer turned the painting over to police, not realizing it had been stolen when he bought it.

Buste de Femme – Pablo Picasso

Owned by the Philippine government, it disappeared in 1986 following the collapse of the Marcos regime. Twelve years later, it surfaced at an auction house. In 1999, it sold for $992,500 on behalf of the Philippine government.

Portrait of a Young Peasant - Vincent Van Gogh

Together with another of Van Gogh’s works, “L'Arlesienne” and “Le Cabanon de Jourdan” Paul Cézanne, were stolen from Rome’s National Gallery in May 1998. The three works, valued at $30 million, were stolen by armed robbers. Three weeks later, however, Italian police arrested eight people, including a father and daughter and a museum guard and his wife. The thieves were caught after unsuccessful attempt to sell the paintings, and all three were returned to the museum.

LOST

The Virgin Mary and Jesus - Gustave Coubert

Robbers in Paraguay spent two months digging a tunnel into the National Fine Arts Museum and stole five paintings worth at least $1 million in July, 2002. The bandits have not been caught, and police believe they fled the country with the works, including this one by pre-Impressionist Gustave Coubert and others by Jacopo Robusti, Esteban Murillo, and Adolphe Piot. The heist was like something out of the movies: the thieves rented a shop across the street from the museum and dug a tunnel that was 25 yards long and 10 feet deep.

Self-Portrait - Rembrandt

On December 22, 2000, one intruder pulled a submachine gun at a guard in the National Museum of Sweden while two others stole two Renoirs and self-portrait of Rembrandt worth $28 million. They threw nails on the floor before fleeing in a boat. The thieves wanted $10 million a painting, a demand they made through an attorney. Though police have made 10 arrests, two of the three works remain at large. One of the two Renoirs stolen, “The Conversation,” worth $4.8 million, was found by police during a drug bust. But as for the Rembrandt and Renoir’s “Young Parisian,” which is worth $2.9 million, the whereabouts of the works remain a mystery.

Shade and Darkness - J.M. William Turner

On July 28, 1994, robbers stole three paintings worth a combined $44 million from Germany’s Schirn Kunsthalle Gallery in Frankfort. The thieves hid inside the museum and shortly before it closed, bound and gagged the guard and fled. The paintings, including this one and “Light and Color” by Turner – both of which are considered to mark the beginning of the Impressionist movement, were on loan from a London Gallery at the time of the heist. Though several culprits have been successfully prosecuted, the art is still missing. A $250,000 reward is being offered.

Nativity with St. Francis & St. Lawrence - Caravaggio

This painting depicting the birth of Jesus hung in the Oratorio de San Lorenzo, a church in Palermo, Sicily, from the time Caravaggio completed painting it in 1609. But in 1969, the painting, worth tens of millions, disappeared. Over the years several leads have emerged, but the painting has yet to surface. A reputed mobster testified during the trial of former prime minister Giulio Andreotti that the mafia stole the painting, but irreparably damaged it. But with no concrete proof to the claim, police continue to investigate leads all over the world, in the hopes that it has been hidden somewhere in good condition and will be recovered.

Wolf and Shepherd - Pieter Brueghel, The Younger

Confiscated by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1942, this is one of many works of art stolen by the Nazis during World War II but never recovered. In addition, many works robbed from victims of the Holocaust have surfaced in museums throughout Europe, sparking legal claims from the original owners and their kin to recover them.