# What is the most famous art theft in history?

> Empty frames, cut alarms and case files that stayed open for decades. A few of these were solved; several never were.

*By YPB Team · Published August 16, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-most-famous-art-theft-in-history*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **The Mona Lisa theft**
   Vincenzo Peruggia walked the painting out of the Louvre on 21 August 1911 and kept it for two years.
2. **Isabella Stewart Gardner heist**
   Two men in police uniforms took 13 works from the Boston museum on 18 March 1990; none have been recovered.
3. **The Ghent Altarpiece panel**
   Van Eyck's Just Judges panel vanished in 1934 and has never been found.
4. **The Scream, Oslo 1994**
   Thieves took Munch's painting from the National Gallery during the Lillehammer Olympics and left a thank-you note.
5. **The Scream, Munch Museum 2004**
   Armed men seized The Scream and Madonna in daylight in front of visitors.
6. **The Louvre jewel heist**
   Thieves cut into the Galerie d'Apollon in October 2025 and were out in minutes with crown jewels.
7. **The Dresden Green Vault raid**
   A 2019 break-in stripped Saxon royal jewels from one of Europe's oldest treasure chambers.
8. **The Kunsthal Rotterdam raid**
   Seven paintings taken in 2012; a suspect's mother said she burned them in a stove.
9. **Van Gogh Museum burglary**
   Two Van Goghs stolen in 2002 turned up in 2016 in a Naples farmhouse belonging to the Camorra.
10. **The theft of the Duke of Wellington**
   Goya's portrait vanished from the National Gallery in 1961 and later appeared in a James Bond film set.
11. **The Antwerp Diamond Centre job**
   A vault holding more than 100 million dollars in stones was emptied in 2003 without an alarm sounding.
12. **The Stockholm National Museum raid**
   A 2000 armed robbery took a Rembrandt self-portrait and two Renoirs, with car bombs as a diversion.

Tags: art, museums, crime