Art: Thieves in the Night

A few moments after Toronto Art Gallery employees reported for work one morning last week, the building was swarming with cops, detectives, reporters, gallery directors and art experts. The reason: six paintings were missing, and two more had been slightly damaged. The thieves had stolen Frans Hals’s portraits of Isaak Abrahamsz Massa (conservatively valued by gallery officials at $120,000) and Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne ($80,000), Rembrandt’s portraits of a Lady with a Lap Dog ($150,000) and a Lady with a Handkerchief ($250,000), Pierre Renoir’s Portrait of Claude ($20,000), Peter Paul Rubens’ The Elevation of the Cross ($20,000). It was probably the biggest art robbery in modern times, and certainly the most sensational since Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911.

Professionals at Work. How many thieves were involved, how they broke into the gallery and how they got out, were questions that no one could answer. But gallery officials were sure that the robbers had carefully cased the joint, since not one alarm in an intricate security system had been sounded. Most plausible theory: the thieves sauntered into the gallery before closing, dodged from room to room while Pinkerton guards made their final rounds before closing.

They started to cut Gainsborough’s The Harvest Waggon (valued at $450,000) and Van Dyck’s Daedalus and Icarus from their frames and then abandoned them. Though both are relatively low-rated by today’s art buyers, the thieves probably were not exercising esthetic discrimination. For one thing, they had time to pilfer $40 from a cashbox, proving their main interest to be monetary. For another, they left a Tintoretto, another Renoir and a Degas untouched.

History for Support. Will the paintings be found? History is full of successful art thefts. A Louvre workman named Vincenzo Peruggia carted away the $1,000,000 Mona Lisa in broad daylight by stripping it from its frame and tucking it under his shirt; he was caught two years later only because he tried to sell it to an honest Florence art dealer. Three centuries earlier, the Duke of Modena became so enraptured with Correggio’s Virgin with St. Magdalen and St. Lucy that he had it stolen from the church of Albinea, and it has never been found. In 1876, Gainsborough’s portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire vanished from the sales rooms of London’s famed art dealers Agnew & Co., was returned for reward 25 years later by a onetime Chicago gambler. Even the Toronto Art Gallery has had its share of thefts. A small Rouault (The Surgeon) vanished from its walls in 1955 and is still missing. The same Rubens that is now at large was also stolen five years ago. That time, the thief triggered an alarm upon leaving, took fright and dumped his loot in Queen’s Park as he ran. What makes art theft so fascinating is that the haul is more a burden than a bargain. Unlike gold or jewelry, a painting cannot be converted into something else. Art “fences” are nonexistent; art dealers, no matter how covetous they may be, cannot afford to handle such hot merchandise. In the old days, thieves could find ready buyers (if not patrons) among wealthy aristocrats. But today, chances are slim that the thieves were hired by one such determined art lover. “That stuff will be hot for the next 100 years,” said Toronto Inspector John Gillespie, as police dispatched photographs of the stolen masterpieces throughout the world. “I don’t know how they will get rid of it.” Best guess: the thieves have merely kidnaped the six pictures, plan to hold them until the insurance company offers a big enough ransom for their return.