Case · Theft
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Robbery
Canada's greatest unsolved art theft
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Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
In 1972 thieves entered the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts through a skylight and took eighteen paintings, including a Rembrandt landscape. Almost all remain missing — Canada's largest art theft.
Exploiting a skylight left open for repairs, three armed men subdued the guards and stripped the walls of works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough, and Delacroix, along with valuable jewellery.
A ransom negotiation collapsed after a police presence spooked the thieves. A single Brueghel was later recovered; the Rembrandt 'Landscape with Cottages' and the rest have never been found.