Is There Really a Dr. No?

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

The Artist in his Studio Rembrandt

I’ve been looking into art theft recently.
Not that I’m thinking of perpetrating any thefts. I just find the subject intriguing. I hadn’t thought much about it until Ann gave me the new book, Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, by security expert Anthony M. Amore and former Sunday editor of The Boston Herald, Tom Mashberg. The authors tell in fascinating detail about some of the largest thefts of paintings of Rembrandt and others over the last century.

Apparently, Rembrandts have long been a target of thieves, who frequently operate under the mistaken belief that they can easily convert these famous paintings into quick cash. One Rembrandt painting has been stolen and recovered four times. Often, the museums and private homes where these masterworks hung had little or no effective security other than locked doors and perhaps an unarmed watchman. The robbers were usually the garden-variet…