Paris raid marks almost a century of art theft

The theft last week of five paintings by artists including Picasso and Matisse is one of the biggest robberies in the art world in decades. The paintings, which were reported missing from the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris on Thursday morning after staff discovered a broken window, are reported to be worth almost Dh454 million in total. The works stolen were Pastoral by Henri Matisse (1906), Olive Tree near l'Estaque by Georges Braque (1906), Dove with Green Peas by Pablo Picasso (1911), Woman with Fan by Amedeo Modigliani (1919) and Still Life with Candlestick by Fernand Léger (1922). The raid, which has been branded a "serious crime against the heritage of humanity" by France's deputy culture secretary, Cristophe Girard, is just the latest in a long line that have taken place over the years.

Back in 1911 Vincenzo Peruggia committed one of the most famous art thefts in history when he stole the Mona Lisa after hiding overnight in the Louvre in Paris. In the morning Peruggia walked calmly out of the museum with possibly the most famous painting in the world - minus its frame - hidden under a museum worker's smock. Although the absence of the painting was quickly noticed, it was wrongly assumed to have been taken away for cleaning. Police were only notified the following day. The discovery that Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century masterpiece had been spirited away caused a worldwide furore, and it was a further two years before it was found in Italy and returned. Peruggia, an Italian who maintained he had removed the painting because he felt it rightfully belonged in Italy, was jailed for just over a year.

But it's not only the French who have been targeted. In 2004, two of the most famous works by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo. In the daylight robbery, several masked gunmen escaped with Madonna and Scream. This was the second time Scream had been stolen, the first being in 1994 when four men made off with the Norwegian National Gallery's version (Munch painted several versions of the image). The National Gallery copy was recovered, undamaged, two months later, while the two paintings stolen in 2004 were found after almost exactly two years.

Both paintings had been damaged, but were back on display in 2008 after being restored to almost their original state. Luckily for the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, in Amsterdam, there was no such wait to recover its stolen paintings, after a raid in 1990 in which two men made off with 20 paintings - each worth Dh735m. The paintings were found in the getaway car just a few hours later; leading investigators to believe the culprits had decided the stolen goods were not worth the bother of trying to sell off.

Unfortunately, not all art robberies have resulted in quite such happy endings. In the early hours of March 18, 1990 - a few months before the robbery at the Van Gogh Museum - two men in police uniforms and fake moustaches made their way to the main entrance of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, claiming they were investigating a disturbance. The guards on duty let them in, only realising their mistake when it was too late. The thieves tied them up and made off with 13 items.

Among the items taken were three paintings by Rembrandt, a Vermeer, a Govaert Flinck and a Manet, a Chinese beaker, five sketches by Degas and a bronze Napoleonic eagle. It was also reported that the paintings had been crudely torn from their frames - vastly diminishing their value. Unfortunately, the paintings have yet to be recovered, and may have been sold to collectors who mistakenly believe them to be copies.

As for the latest robbery, the Musée d'Art Moderne has been cordoned off since the incident to allow investigators to look into how the security system was breached - although museum officials have already admitted that the alarm system had not been functioning properly for weeks.