Walk through the best art.

01 / 12 · Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1830 to 1832

The Great Wave

Under the Wave off Kanagawa

At the Met, the median visitor gives a painting 17 seconds. Label included.

Call it the walk-past. Quicklime slows it down: one painting, a few details, and the thing nobody stayed long enough to see.

Source: Smith & Smith, Spending Time on Art, 2001

Look closer

A tiny mountain.

Now step back.

The series is about Fuji. Here it's the smallest thing.

Read The Great Wave

34 paintings · one twist each

The walk-past wall

The heist file

A theft is the loudest review a painting ever gets.

4 heists. 2 paintings came home. 2 are still out there.

Recovered
01 · Paris · 21 August 1911
The Mona Lisa
Vincenzo Peruggia works at the Louvre. He helped build her glass case.
The museum is shut for the day. He locks himself in and leaves with her.
Police jail the poet Apollinaire. They question Picasso.
She spends two years in Peruggia's flat.
He gets caught trying to sell her to the Uffizi. He serves less than a year.
Back at the Louvre since 4 January 1914
Read the full file Wikipedia, Mona Lisa Wikipedia, Vincenzo Peruggia
Still missing
02 · Ghent · 10 April 1934
The Just Judges
At night, one panel leaves the van Eycks' Ghent Altarpiece.
Ransom letters follow. At least eleven. One million Belgian francs.
The government says no.
November 1934. Arsène Goedertier, dying, tells his lawyer he alone knows where it is.
He says he'll take the secret to his grave. He does.
Still missing. A copy has hung in its place since 1945
Read the full file Wikipedia, The Just Judges The Art Newspaper, 1995
Still missing
03 · Boston · 18 March 1990
Thirteen works, one night
Two men in police uniforms ring the Gardner Museum's intercom.
Thirteen works leave with them. Rembrandt's only seascape is one.
The museum repaired the frames and hung them back up. Empty.
The reward is ten million dollars. Nobody has collected it.
Still missing
Read the full file Gardner Museum, the theft Gardner Museum, the five frames Gardner Museum, $10 million reward Wikipedia, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft
Recovered
04 · Oslo · 12 February 1994
The Scream
Norway opens the Winter Olympics at Lillehammer.
Two men break into the National Gallery and take The Scream.
The ransom demand is one million dollars. It is refused.
They leave a note thanking the gallery for its poor security.
Recovered undamaged, 7 May 1994
Read the full file Wikipedia, The Scream History.com, The Scream recovered

37 painters · 1390 to 1944

From Jan van Eyck to Amedeo Modigliani

Pick one. Beat 17 seconds.

Walk through the best art.

The walk-past wall

A theft is the loudest review a painting ever gets.

The Mona Lisa

The Just Judges

Thirteen works, one night

The Scream

From Jan van Eyck to Amedeo Modigliani