Find the Missing Masterpiece in This Quiz About Art Heists

One night in 1990, thieves entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and walked out with more than $500 million in iconic artworks. Paintings by Vermeer, Manet, Rembrandt, and more, were taken by criminals impersonating police officers. As of 2022, the masterpieces haven't been recovered and no one has been arrested for what is now the largest art heist in history.

In 1432, Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert completed their 12-panel masterpiece, "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," which was then put on display in St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. Better known as the Ghent Altarpiece, the 14.5 by 11.5-foot work, which weighs more than two tons, has reportedly been stolen seven times, including in 1794 by Napoleon's troops.

"The Saliera" is a small golden sculpture from 1543 that was designed as a salt cellar and it is the only known surviving work by Renaissance master Benvenuto Cellini. In 2003, a thief removed it from its case at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Three years later, security expert Robert Mang was found to be the thief and he returned the sculpture, which he had buried in a lead box in a forest.

In1473, the triptych painting "Last Judgment" by Hans Memling was on a ship to Florence, Italy when suddenly the vessel was attacked by Polish pirates. The seafaring thieves stole the three-paneled painting and brought it back to a cathedral in Gdańsk, Poland. It is still in the Polish city's National Museum, never having made it to its intended Italian destination.

In 1626, Frans Hals painted "Two Laughing Boys with a mug of Beer." In 1988, more than 350 years later, the painting was stolen from the Museum Hofje van Mevrouw van Aeden in the Netherlands. Three years later, it was recovered only to be stolen again for six months in 2011. Then, most recently in 2020, the work was taken again. Its value is estimated at more than $15 million and, as of May 2022, is still missing.

In 1985, 113 years after it was originally painted by Claude Monet, "Impression, Sunrise" was stolen. The heist took place at Paris' Musée Marmottan, where thieves entered in broad daylight and held 49 people at gunpoint while taking the iconic work as well as other notable paintings by Berthe Morison and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Five years later, the masterpieces were recovered and seven people were arrested for the crime.

In 2005, thieves stole Henry Moore's two-ton bronze sculpture "Reclining Figure" from outside the artist's foundation in Hertfordshire, England. In 2009, after a series of inquiries at local scrap yards, detectives discovered that the thieves had cut up the sculpture, sold it for its bronze, and earned about $1,500. The sculpture was estimated to be worth $18 million.

With more than 1,000 works of art stolen over the years, Pablo Picasso is the most stolen artist in history. Coming in at No. 2 is lesser-known contemporary American artist Nick Lawrence, who had more than 500 works stolen in one raid in 2004, and in third is French modernist Marc Chagall.

In 1994, Edvard Munch's 1893 painting, "The Scream," was stolen when two robbers broke into Norway's National Gallery in Oslo and left a note that read: “Thousand thanks for the bad security!” Luckily, the art was recovered undamaged during a police sting two years later. Then, in 2004, another version of the painting (Munch created four versions) was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo but was recovered in 2006.

Before the "Mona Lisa" became the most famous painting in the world, it sat relatively forgotten in Paris' world-famous museum, the Louvre. In 1911, Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia snuck in and stole the da Vinci work, elevating its fame, and raising intrigue about the case around the world. The "Mona Lisa" was found a few years later, and Peruggia spent just seven months in jail for the crime.