On 18th March 1990 a pair of daring art thieves set their sights on $200 million of art in a poorly protected museum. It was the largest art robbery in American history. And one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. Robberies of the Century
$200M of art stolen in picture-perfect heist. Boston Herald headline
In 1922 Albert Barnes created the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, five miles from the centre of Philadelphia. The Foundation houses the most important and valuable collection of Post-Impressionist and Early Modern art in the world. Storyville: The Billion Dollar Heist ***** BBC 2011
During these negotiations Governor [Ed] Rendell promised a boost in state money to the under-funded Lincoln University. ibid.
No member of the Lincoln or Barnes Foundation boards involved in these negotiations would speak on the record. ibid.
The money to relocate the Barnes Foundation was placed in Pennsylvania’s budget before the Barnes’ Trustees announced their intention to move. The availability of state funds was never disclosed to the judge deciding the fate of the Barnes’ move. ibid.
The Immaculate Appropriation. ibid.
The Friends of the Barnes and Montgomery County did not appeal the judge’s decision. ibid.
Dr Albert C Barnes’ collection is scheduled to be removed from his Foundation and installed in the new facility by 2012. ibid.
The Barnes Foundation would attack ... the enemies of intelligence and imagination in art, whether or not those enemies were protected by financial power or social prestige. Dr Albert C Barnes
Philadelphia is a depressing intellectual slum. Dr Albert C Barnes
The main function of the museum has been to serve as a pedestal upon which a clique of socialists pose as patrons of the arts. Dr Albert C Barnes
They’ve got more Cézannes than the entire city of Paris, 181 Renoirs, wall to wall, 59 paintings by Matisse ... Picasso 46, 7 by Van Gogh, 6 by Seurat. Nick Tinari, attorney and former Barnes Foundation student
The Barnes Collection is the only sane place to see art in America. Henri Matisse
He tried to create a collection that was proof against commercial exploitation. Professor Robert Zaller
Visitors to the Louvre were undeterred: for some time afterwards they queued up to contemplate the blank space where the Mona Lisa had once hung. The theft made headline news around the world. A massive police hunt was launched, and among those suspects brought in for questioning was a radical young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso. Alan Yentob, Leonardo III: The Secret Life of the Mona Lisa, BBC 2003
Give me a museum and I’ll fill it. Pablo Picasso
A show in the Tate is not necessarily that great. Damien Hirst, interview Damien Hirst: Thoughts, Work, Life, 2012
In July 1994 the gang struck the Headley Whitney museum 300 miles south in Lexington. Masterminds s54: The Museum Heist, History 2006
One of the main reasons for our precipitous invasion of Iraq was to make a bee-line for Baghdad and use a mob scene as a cover for a very concerted effort to loot the Iraqi national museum. What were they after? They were after newly discovered artefacts, tablets, scrolls and such that were being found in the ancient Sumerian cities. Jim Marrs, interview Project Camelot
London’s Natural History Museum has over seventy million specimens. Attenborough’s Ark: Natural World Special, BBC 2012
The Natural History Museum – one of the most popular of all London’s attractions. David Attenborough’s ... Natural History Museum Alive, BBC 2014
There are seventy million or so specimens here I’m told. ibid.
The Egyptian Museum stands on the square; it is the heart of Egypt. The bearer of its heritage. In the chaos of the revolution the museum’s unique collection was looted. Imagine ... The Museum on Liberation Square, BBC 2011
It houses 160,000 treasures from Egypt’s ancient civilisation. The age of the pharaohs began five millennia ago. ibid.
The treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb are here. ibid.
Luckily, in the looting these items weren’t touched. But fifty-four items were taken of which twenty-three have been recovered. ibid.
The thieves broke in on the night of January 28th. ibid.
The students rallied round. ibid.
Antiquities from Egypt were routinely shipped out and many are now to be found in museums in the West. ibid.
The sites were very vulnerable during the revolution. ibid.
In the year 2000 a building reopened on the South Bank of the Thames which created a kind of buzz around the world … One of the most visited places in Britain. Tate Modern Switched On, BBC 2016
A new extension – the Swift House … three huge new floors of gallery space and a viewing platform at the top. ibid.
Digital art is still an area they are exploring. ibid.
London’s Natural History Museum is one of the world’s most prestigious institutions. Since it opened in 1881, over 600 million visitors have passed through its doors. It’s a spectacular monument to Earth’s biodiversity. And since 1979 a dinosaur, Dippy the diplodocus, has welcomed everyone as they enter the main hall. He’s one of the museum’s most adored attractions. But in 2015 the museum took the controversial decision to call time on Dippy. It announced that the hall was going to be given a new star attraction, one that has been here gathering dust for over a hundred years – the skeleton of a huge blue whale. Horizon: Dippy and the Whale, BBC 2017
1934: It took 20 men 6 months to hang the whale. ibid.
Blue whales can weight up to 200 tons and measure up to 30 metres in length. ibid.
Dead in the underground vaults of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem lie the remains of the oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence: the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hidden in desert caves for more than two thousand years, many of these scrolls are now buried in the vaults of the museum. For almost half a century they’ve been seen only by a handful of privileged scholars. Ancient Mysteries: Enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls, A&E 1994
Publication delay and requests for access denied. ibid.
Judea, Winter 1947: three desert herdsmen made their way along the shores of the Dead Sea. ibid.
Hundreds of manuscripts and tens of thousands of fragments were dug out of more than a dozen caves in and around Qumran. ibid.
Eight scholars: the international team. ibid.
The Temple Scroll was the eighth to come into Israeli hands. ibid.
The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world. And at £2.5 billion it’s also the most famous. Heists s1e5: Mona Lisa, Channel 5 2017
Just over a hundred years ago the Mona Lisa was snatched from the world’s most famous museum. The crime sent shockwaves around the world and baffled the world’s greatest living detective. ibid.
The greatest art heist ever: August 22nd 1911. ibid.
Cameras have been allowed behind the scenes at the Victoria & Albert Museum, home to more than 2,000,000 wonders of art, design and performance. But only a small part of the collection is on display. Secrets of the Museum s1e1, BBC 2020
The V&A’s Museum of Childhood houses Britain’s biggest collection of toys from the past. ibid.
The V&A is home to treasures as ancient as three thousand years old. But just because an object has survived for centuries doesn’t mean that’s it’s not vulnerable. Few artefacts in the collection are more fragile than these 5-metre-wide masterpieces: Raphael Cartoons 1-7 (1515-1516) painted on paper. Secrets of the Museum s1e2
‘The greatest Renaissance treasures in the UK.’ ibid. specialist
In the clothes stores, curators follow a strict rule to preserve their 70,000 precious garments. ibid.
One of the most famous and fragile-seeming artworks in the whole museum is the first many visitors see – suspended 40-feet in air above the main entrance, this giant Rotunda Chandelier, Dale Chihuly, 2001. ibid.
An army of experts is at work bringing masterpieces to light, restoring our heritage and breathing new life into fragile marvels to keep the past alive for all of us. Secrets of the Museum s1e3
In the fashion department a major new exhibition is being planned, celebrating breakthrough designer Mary Quant. ibid.