The Christ Church Picture Gallery Theft
Three Old Masters gone from Oxford
Image: Unsplash
In 2020 thieves broke into the Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford and took three Old Master paintings by Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, and Anthony van Dyck. Two remain missing, one came back!
The gallery, part of one of Oxford's grandest colleges, holds a distinguished collection of Italian and Northern European paintings. The 2020 burglary was swift and carefully targeted. Of the three works stolen—a Carracci, a Rosa, and a Van Dyck—Salvator Rosa's A Rocky Coast, with Soldiers Studying a Plan was recovered in Romania and returned to Christ Church Picture Gallery in 2024 after being voluntarily handed to authorities. Two paintings, Annibale Carracci's A Boy Drinking and Anthony van Dyck's A Soldier on Horseback, remain missing, adding to Oxford's uneasy record of high-profile gallery thefts.