Three famous paintings were stolen from a Frankfurt art gallery in 1994. This case of art theft is unique in that the paintings were recovered by buying them back from the thieves; the people responsible for the theft were never brought to justice.
The theft took place on 28 July 1994 in the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. The thieves had themselves locked into the museum at night and then overpowered a security guard. The stolen paintings were L...
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Three famous paintings were stolen from a Frankfurt art gallery in 1994. This case of art theft is unique in that the paintings were recovered by buying them back from the thieves; the people responsible for the theft were never brought to justice.
The theft took place on 28 July 1994 in the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. The thieves had themselves locked into the museum at night and then overpowered a security guard. The stolen paintings were Light and Colour and Shade and Darkness, a sequence by J. M. W. Turner and on loan from the Tate Gallery in London, and Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich, on loan from the Kunsthalle Hamburg. Two of the thieves and a dealer were apprehended quickly, but they refused to reveal the location of the paitings and the identity of the people who had ordered the theft. In 1999 they received sentences of up to 11 years. Police were unable to recover the paintings. Insurance companies paid about 40 million euros to the paintings' owners.
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