What you’re looking at there is apparently around $613 million.
(And yes, it is very odd when you think about the difference between owning digital copies of the images, which is free… and owning the originals, which are apparently somehow worth over $600 million. But that’s not the point.)
Those five paintings were stolen last night from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
When you hear about a museum robbery for that kind of money, you kind of hope that there’s an incredible caper story there.
This time… not so much.
A broken window and a smashed grille were the first clues that led to the discovery early today that five paintings worth $613 million, including a Picasso and a Matisse, were stolen sometime overnight from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
A surveillance camera later showed a single, hooded and masked man climbing into the museum and stealing the artwork
Yeah, that’s not exactly my idea of a madcap caper–anything you can pull of without any planning that you’d need George Clooney to do in the movie, where the total set of gear you’d need is covered by “rock, knife, and stepladder”, is hardly a caper.
The part of the article I just quoted that made me laugh the most though:
The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, which opened in 1961, has the reputation of being one of the most secure in the world.
Yes, that’s some serious security, there. Who could have predicted an assault by a single man carrying a rock? Next thing someone might come at the museum with a board-with-a-nail-in-it.
Also, am I the only person who’s always a little disappointed when burglars cut art out of the frames? It just seems kind of disrespectful, right?
