Case · Theft
The Dulwich Rembrandt Theft (1966)
The world's most-stolen painting
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Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Rembrandt's small portrait 'Jacob de Gheyn III' was stolen from Dulwich in 1966 — the first of four thefts that earned it the nickname 'the Takeaway Rembrandt'. Each time, it came back.
Barely the size of a sheet of paper, the de Gheyn portrait proved irresistibly portable. Stolen in 1966 and again in 1973, 1981, and 1983, it was recovered every time — once found on a luggage rack of a bicycle, once beneath a bench in a graveyard.
It holds the Guinness record as the most frequently stolen artwork, a comic-tragic emblem of small-museum security.