Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/10-paintings-that-were-stolen-and-never-recovered/
Art theft is far more common than most people realize. Only 5 to 10 percent of stolen artwork is ever recovered, and we’re not talking about minor pieces – we mean works by the greatest masters in history. The US FBI maintains a list of “Top Ten Art Crimes,” a grim catalogue that underscores just how permanent many of these losses truly are. Some of art history’s most irreplaceable canvases were cut from their frames, rolled up, stuffed into trunks, or simply vanished into the hands of criminals who knew exactly what they had. What follows is a gallery of ten paintings that left the walls of museums and churches and never came back.
1. The Concert by Johannes Vermeer (1663–1666)
On March 18, 1990, the largest art theft in the world happened in Boston, Massachusetts, and The Concert by Johannes Vermeer was one of the 13 pieces stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The thieves dressed as Boston Police officers and sported fake mustaches, and within a few minutes of entering the museum, the fake officers claimed they had a warrant and arrested the museum guards. Decades later, the theft of the works, worth $500 million, remains unsolved.
Among these was The Concert by Dutch painter Vermeer, one of only 34 paintings attributed to him. The painting accounts for half of the overall theft’s value, estimated at $250 million in 2015….
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-03-10 06:14:00
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