If you are interested in the new version of Grand Theft Auto (a video game, m’lud) you are in the wrong place. This is about art theft.
The Concert (c. 1664) is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer depicting a man and two women performing music. It was stolen on March 18, 1990, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and remains missing to the present. (Wiki)
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee is a 1633 oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It is classified as a history painting and ranks among the largest and earliest of Rembrandt’s works. Purchased by art historian Bernard Berenson for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898 , it was displayed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston until its theft in 1990; its whereabouts remain unknown. The painting vividly portrays the biblical miracle in which Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, as recounted in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Notably, it is Rembrandt’s only known seascape, distinguishing it within his oeuvre. (Wiki)
The Just Judges is the lower left panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, painted by Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert Van Eyck between 1430 and 1432. It is believed that the panel shows portraits of several contemporary figures such as Philip the Good, and possibly the artists Hubert and Jan van Eyck themselves. The panel was stolen in 1934 and has never been found. (Wiki)
The White Duck, by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, was stolen from Houghton Hall in 1992 and has never been recovered.
Le pigeon aux petit pois is a 1911 oil painting by Pablo Picasso. It is an example of Picasso’s Cubist works and has an estimated value of €23 million. The painting was one of five artworks stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris on 20 May 2010, which together are valued at €100 million ($123 million). It has so far not been recovered and its whereabouts remain unknown. (Wiki)
The sheer number of pictures and sculpture stolen is much bigger than I expected and only about 10% is ever recovered. Thieves are tempted by the value of these works on the open market but usually can only sell them for less than 10% of this figure. Often, if the picture is well known, they cannot find a buyer and resort to asking for ransom to secure the return of the work but this has its risks.
It is only in Iain Pears’ art crime novels, there are seven of them, all excellent, that the art works are always recovered.