Art theft, sometimes called artnapping, is the stealing of paintings, sculptures, or other forms of visual art from galleries, museums or other public and private locations. Stolen art is often resold or used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—an estimated 10%. Many nations operate police squads to investigate art theft and illegal trade in stolen art and antiquities.
Stéphane Breitweiser is a French art thief and author, notorious for his art thefts between 1995 and 2001. He admitted to stealing 239 artworks and other exhibits from 172 museums while travelling around Europe and working as a waiter, an average of one theft every 15 days. The Guardian called him "arguably the world's most consistent art thief."
Henriette Theodora Markovitch, known as Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, and poet. A love partner of Pablo Picasso, Maar was depicted in a number of Picasso's paintings, including his Portrait of Dora Maar and Dora Maar au Chat.
Marie-Thérèse Walter was a French model and lover of Pablo Picasso from 1927 to about 1935 and the mother of their daughter Maya Widmaier-Picasso. Their relationship began when she was seventeen years old; he was 45 and still living with his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. It ended when Picasso moved on to his next relationship, with artist Dora Maar.
Dora Maar au Chat is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in 1941 and depicts Dora Maar, the artist's lover, seated on a chair with a small cat perched on her shoulders. The painting is listed as one of the most expensive paintings, after achieving a price of $95 million at Sotheby's on 3 May 2006. It is currently the sixth highest selling painting by Picasso.
The Weeping Woman is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Pablo Picasso, the last of which was created in late 1937. The paintings depict Dora Maar, Picasso's mistress and muse. The Weeping Woman paintings were produced by Picasso in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and are closely associated with the iconography in his painting Guernica. Picasso was intrigued with the subject of the weeping woman, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. The last version, created on 26 October 1937, was the most elaborate of the series, and has been housed in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987. Another Weeping Woman painting is housed at the National Gallery of Victoria and was involved in a high profile political art theft.
Jacqueline is an oil painting by Pablo Picasso, created in 1961. The New York Times described it as "a black, gray and white Cubist oil of Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife."
The Kunsthal is an art museum in Rotterdam. It opened in 1992.
Portrait of Suzanne Bloch is an oil on canvas painting executed by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in Paris in 1904, towards the end of his Blue Period. The subject, Suzanne Bloch, was a singer known for her Wagner interpretations, and the sister of the violinist Henri Bloch. The painting is housed in the São Paulo Museum of Art.
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, alternatively named The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring or Spring Garden, is an early oil painting by 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, created in May 1884 while he was living with his parents in Nuenen. Van Gogh made several drawings and oil paintings of the surrounding gardens and the garden façade of the parsonage.
Tête de femme is a plaster-modelled, bronze-cast sculpture by Pablo Picasso. Dora Maar, Picasso's lover at the time, was the subject of the work which was originally conceived in 1941. Four copies of the bust were cast in the 1950s, several years after the relationship ended.
Woman with Flowered Hat is a 1963 pop art painting with Magna on canvas by Roy Lichtenstein. The work is based on a Pablo Picasso portrait of Dora Maar. In May 2013, it sold for a record price for a Lichtenstein work.
The theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria took place on 2 August 1986 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The stolen work was one of a series of paintings by Pablo Picasso all known as The Weeping Woman and had been purchased by the gallery for A$1.6 million in 1985—at the time the highest price paid by an Australian art gallery for an artwork. A group calling itself "Australian Cultural Terrorists" claimed responsibility, making a number of demands in letters to the then-Victorian Minister for the Arts, Race Mathews. The demands included increases to funding for the arts; threats were made that the painting would be destroyed. After an anonymous tip-off to police, the painting was found undamaged in a locker at Spencer Street railway station on 19 August 1986. The theft still remains unsolved.
Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer is a painting by Frans Hals showing a Kannekijker (mug-looker). Someone looking into a mug refers to an old Dutch word for a glutton, greedy for more. This visual theme was also used to depict sight as one of the five senses, and various people have argued about whether this portrait was meant as one in a series of the five senses along with Two Boys singing for hearing and a variant version of The Smoker for smell:
The 2011 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts theft took place in two separate incidents during September and October of that year. In both instances, the same thief took a small ancient stone piece that was openly exhibited, without a protective case, and smuggled it out of the museum. One has since been recovered; however, the thief remains unidentified and the whereabouts of the other is not known.
Still Life with Candlestick is an oil painting created in 1922 by the French artist Fernand Léger.
Portrait of Dora Maar is a 1937 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. It depicts Dora Maar,, the painter's lover, seated on a chair. It is part of the collection of the Musée Picasso, in Paris, where it is considered to be one of Picasso's masterpieces.
Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée is an oil-on-canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, which he created in 1937. It is a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso's lover and muse during this period and was created with elements of Cubism. The painting signifies a transition in their relationship by combining Walter's profile with that of Picasso's new lover, the Surrealist photographer Dora Maar, with whom he began a relationship in 1936. This portrait was produced in the same year as Guernica and The Weeping Woman, a significant phase in Picasso's artistic career. On 28 February 2018, it was sold at Sotheby's auction for £49.8 million, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold at an auction in Europe.
