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The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884)
Vincent van Gogh, The Netherlands
Last seen: The Netherlands
While living with his parents, Van Gogh painted this view of the back garden of his father’s parsonage in March 1884. The style and colours suggest this as one of his earliest works. With the old church in the distance, a woman in black walking away turns back, looking towards the house. The parsonage and garden still survive in Nuenen, Netherlands, however the painting has vanished. In a smash-and-grab attack, on 30 March 2020, it was taken on Van Gogh’s 167th birthday. It’s still missing but there’s hope it’s one of many happy returns.
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Portrait of Dr Gachet (1884)
Vincent van Gogh, The Netherlands
Last seen: USA
Portrait of Dr Gachet is one of Van Gogh’s most celebrated works. After a breakdown and cutting off part of his ear, Van Gogh admitted himself into the health asylum where Dr Gachet worked. At first, he didn’t bond with Gachet, but later changed his mind: “I have found a true friend in Dr Gachet… so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally.” Seen in the portrait, which bears a passing resemblance to the artist.
On 15 May 1990, Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito bought it for $82.5 million, later wishing to be cremated with it when he died. It’s now believed to be in a private Swiss collection, but the good doctor hasn’t been seen since 1990.
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The Painter on His Way to Work
Vincent van Gogh, The Netherlands
Last seen: Germany
Possibly a self-portrait from his time in Arles, this 1888 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh showcases the technique for which he is best-known: heavy use of impasto - fat daubs of paint that are almost sculptural. It is thought to have been accidentally destroyed by an errant Allied bomb during the Second World War, when it was housed at the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg, Germany.
Van Gogh has been frequently targeted; in 1991, 20 works were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, worth a combined estimated value of around $500 million. In 2002, a pair of Van Gogh paintings were taken from the same museum and then recovered at a mafia kingpin’s home outside of Naples in 2016.
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White Duck
Jean Baptiste Oudry, France
Last seen: U.K.
Oudry was known as the court painter to Louis XV. Producing mainly portraits his devotion was to still life with fruit and animals. Estimated at $8 million, this 19th century still life was stolen from the collection of the Marquess of Cholmondeley at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, England in 1992.
Some investigators believe it was passed into the hands of a Gypsy gang based in the region. Criminals sometimes steal on the assumption they’ll find an unlawful art collector, the kind seen in movies. But rather than hanging on a villain’s living room wall, a former police informer said that the painting was hidden in the attic of a remote, rundown house in the moors outside of Newcastle. It’s still waiting to be found.
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View of Auvers-sur-Oise
Paul Cezanne, France
Last seen: U.K.
Cézanne, one of art history’s revolutionaries established a mind-bending style that differed from what had come before and inspired those who came after. He was particularly adept at bending perspective for dramatic effect, as depicted in this landscape study of a cluster of rural houses.
Burglars possibly taken by his bending of perspectives, took advantage of New Year’s Eve 1999 festivities to steal the painting in cinematic style. Climbing adjacent scaffolding, smashing a skylight, dropping a rope ladder down and shielding their path with a smoke bomb. Inside, a portable fan blew the smoke, obscuring CCTV cameras. The alarms rang, but the smoke tricked security staff into thinking it’s a fire, so they called the fire brigade rather than intervening, giving the thieves time to escape.
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Last Judgement (1808)
William Blake, U.K.
Last seen: U.K.
A great multi-talented mystic of British art, William Blake was a brilliant painter, publisher and more… his poetry is still read by schoolchildren the world over (“Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright”).
Inspired by Michelangelo’s fresco of the ‘Last Judgement’ in the Sistine Chapel, Blake’s enormous lost painting shows the dead rising to be sent eternally to Heaven or to Hell. He claimed to have been subject to “visions” all his life, many of his paintings and poems were manifestations of them. In this version of the lost Last Judgement painted in 1808, the figures are symbolic of ideas, and would likely have been vibrantly colored. Planned as the centerpiece of his major exhibition, in 1810, the exhibit was cancelled and this, along with many other works due for display, were lost.
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Summer (c. 1644)
David Teniers the Younger, The Netherlands
Last seen: Portugal
Allegory in art is where a figure or a symbol stands in for a concept. The study of symbols in art, called iconography, treats pictures as visual riddles. Where the artist would like you, the viewer, to proactively engage with the artwork and try to decipher its meaning.
‘Summer’ is from a series of 'An Allegory of the Four Seasons', four paintings by Dutch artist David Teniers the Younger. Best known for painting bawdy scenes in taverns, this allegorical sequence is a sober departure. We see workers harvesting wheat on a hot day, a collective image meant to bring to mind summertime. Teniers painted several versions of the series; however, one version of Summer was stolen from the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Portugal in 1974 and the pursuit to recover it is still hot.
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Charing Cross Bridge (1899-1904)
Claude Monet, France
Last seen: U.K & Romania, The Netherlands
Monet painted 37 versions of Charing Cross Bridge and at least 40 versions of Waterloo Bridge. He was fascinated with painting studies of how light affects and alters his subjects. And would return to many repeatedly, capturing various seasons, each with subtle differences. The versions in focus are two of the paintings stolen in October 2012 from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. The mother of one of the thieves convicted claimed that the ‘Waterloo Bridge’ was among the stolen paintings she burned in her stove in Romania. A horrific attempt to destroy evidence against her son. Police did find traces of pigment in her stove, but not enough to verify her claims.
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Waterloo Bridge (1899-1904)
Claude Monet, France
Last seen: U.K & Romania, The Netherlands
Monet painted 37 versions of Charing Cross Bridge and at least 40 versions of Waterloo Bridge. He was fascinated with painting studies of how light affects and alters his subjects. And would return to many repeatedly, capturing various seasons, each with subtle differences. The versions in focus are two of the paintings stolen in October 2012 from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. The mother of one of the thieves convicted claimed that the ‘Waterloo Bridge’ was among the stolen paintings she burned in her stove in Romania. A horrific attempt to destroy evidence against her son. Police did find traces of pigment in her stove, but not enough to verify her claims.
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Landscape (1917)
József Lampérth Nemes, Hungary
Last seen: Hungary
This gorgeous landscape painting by Hungarian artist József Lampérth Nemes, was one of two privately-owned works that went missing from a storage warehouse of the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art in Debrecen, Hungary. Art theft tends to be thought of in terms of cinematic museum heists, and there are many examples that fit this rather Romantic impression. With tens of thousands of art thefts reported each year (not to mention unreported), archives and warehouses are popular targets as it might be months before anyone takes notice.
However, works in storage require specialised knowledge to locate and therefore target. Thus, a theft like this suggests the thieves knew what they were after ahead of time. While art theft on commission in exceedingly rare, one wonders in a case like this.
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A Mythological Scene with a Young Bacchus
Jacob Jordaens, Belgium (Photo Archive of Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź)
Last seen: Poland
This masterpiece by the great Dutch Old Master, Jacob Jordaens, was one of thousands looted from Poland during the Second World War. Hugely influenced by Rubens, a generation older and also from Antwerp, the influences can be seen in aspects of his works. Here, Bacchus, the ancient god of agriculture, wine and fertility, is shown as a young child surrounded by Maenads (female nymphs) and Satyrs (half-man, half-goat).
Poland’s unusually rich cultural heritage collections were decimated by the Russian Red Army and the Nazis’ dedicated art and archive theft unit, the ERR. While many have been recovered, many more remain lost, such as this Jordaens. Taken from the J. K. Bartoszewicz Museum of History and Art in Lodz, its whereabouts is still mythical.
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Chloe & Emma
Barbora Kysilkova, Czech Republic
Last seen: Norway
Soon after Barbora Kysilkova moved to Oslo, she had two of her most important artworks stolen. Her pieces only became world-renowned recently, when her documentary, ‘The Painter and the Thief’, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It’s the true story of how she traced and developed an unlikely friendship with a young man who stole her paintings.
Her oversized, photorealistic works had a limited audience beyond Norway, until this acclaimed film came out, meaning that the theft was more likely an act of passion, not an attempt at profit. Most thieves know nothing of art they take, only seeing it as a portable, high-value commodity. This case is also unusual in that the apprehended thieves claim not to remember anything or what they did with the paintings, since they were so “incapacitated.”
