Major Art Theft in Pairs

The New York Daily News and other sources are reporting on the theft of 5 paintings from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. According to the NY Daily News the paintings are estimated to be worth a total of over $600 million. The NY Times states they are worth between $75 and $125 million.

A lone thief was caught on Video tape, but authorities have little to go on.  The alarm was disabled and the artwork was cut from frames.  Given the notoriety of the paintings, experts believe the paintings may be offered for ransom.  Some articles suspect an organized crime possibility.  In any event the theft was well planned and executed.

The five paintings are

• "Le pigeon aux petits-pois" (The Pigeon with the Peas) by Pablo Picasso
• "La Pastorale" (Pastoral) by Henri Matisse
• "L'olivier pres de l'Estaque" (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Georges Braque
• "La femme a l'eventail" (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani (see image)
• "Nature-mort aux chandeliers" (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Fernand Leger

The NY Times reports,

The stature of the paintings would make them extremely difficult to sell in the art market, raising questions about whether the theft was a form of kidnapping to demand ransom from the museum. Police and museum officials said little about the security failure, particularly whether the alarm system had malfunctioned or had been disabled. The French newspaper Le Parisien quoted an unidentified source from the museum who claimed that the security alarm had not worked for two months, and that management had been notified of the problem.

But in a hastily called news conference outside the museum, Christophe Girard, deputy mayor of culture for Paris, told reporters that the museum was equipped with security alarms, and that three armed guards patrolling the museum on Wednesday night had not noticed anything amiss.

“We must leave it to the police to determine how the security system was evaded,” Mr. Girard said.

The theft, he added, was carried out “by one or more individuals, obviously very organized,” who entered by breaking a window at the rear of the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo.

To read the NY Times article click HERE, to read the NY Daily News article, click HERE. Also, click HERE for a good article from the Guardian.