Museums across the world are scrambling to react to a spate of thefts
that has left them in a state of shock.

Last year’s break-in at the Louvre,
by a gang who gained access using a furniture lift and took €88m (£76m) worth of French Crown Jewels,
is thought by experts to have inspired copycat crimes.

While French police believe that they have caught the culprits, treasures including a tiara have not been found.

In August, objects were stolen from museums in Sicily, Vienna and Villena in Spain.

This week, thieves targeted the former home of another 19th-century Frenchman, the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
After cutting a hole in the fence outside the property near Nice, two men escaped with two paintings.

From the Pink Panther films to Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen,
heists have long been a source of fascination in popular culture.
There is something mythic about the gang of thieves seeking riches.
Sometimes they are portrayed as plucky Robin Hoods,
illicit brotherhoods pitting their wits against the citadels of ultra-wealth.
Last year’s Tuner offered a new twist on the genre: a safe-cracker with super-sensitive ears.

But the excitement that spectacular thefts generate in real life, as well as in fiction,
must be balanced against realism about their effects.

For the Louvre, last year’s raid was a reputational disaster that led its president to resign.

For smaller museums such as Renoir’s house, they are closer to an existential threat.

The pictures stolen on Tuesday were on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris;
⭐️national collections will stop lending to regional museums if the risks are judged too high. 

Experts warn that “smash and grab” raiders have learned to operate within the window of a few minutes that it takes police to arrive after an alarm sounds.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/11/the-guardian-view-on-art-heists-dont-believe-the-hollywood-hype?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other