Rembrandt’s Jacob de Gheyn III Thefts
Yes, you read that right, thefts. Plural. This one specific, small, Rembrandt painting has been stolen four whole times. Let’s review these four incidents and talk a little bit about why this particular painting is just so irresistible to thieves.
Jacob de Gheyn III
First, a little background. Rembrandt was commissioned to paint two portraits for two best friends; Jacob de Gheyn III (an engraver) and Maurits Huygens (a poet and composer) in 1632. This is truly best friend goals. They asked him to paint the two portraits in identical formats and sizes, so they would match and Rembrandt even painted them on two boards cut from the same piece of wood in keeping with this request. Each friend kept their own portrait but they agreed that after one of the friends died the other would keep both portraits together.
de Gheyn ended up dying in 1641, causing the paintings to live together with Huygens until his death a few years later. After this, these two portraits were sadly split up and sold numerous times at auction, travelling all over the place before landing at their current locations. Jacob de Gheyn III resides in London in the Dulwich Picture Gallery while Maurits Huygens lives at The Hamburg Kunsthalle.
Since then Jacob de Gheyn III has made a name for itself as the “takeaway Rembrandt” and holds the Guinness World Record for most frequently stolen painting. Didn’t know that was a category tbh. Now let’s talk about the thefts.
Theft 1: 1966
After midnight on December 31, 1966, a group of thieves broke into the Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London. They were able to get in by drilling into and removing a door that was rarely used by the gallery, it is only 30cm x 60cm big, which probably explains why it was rarely used. Because they used this little door they were able to get in without sounding the alarm, it was only activated around entrances and exits and I guess this door wasn’t used enough to be considered one.
This tiny door constrained what they could steal though, you win some you lose some. They realized that they were only going to be able to fit frameless or very small pieces through the opening. Despite this, they still managed to steal eight paintings that night: three pictures by Rembrandt (A Girl at the Window, Portrait of Titus, and Jacob de Gheyn III), three pictures by Rubens (Three Women with a Cornucopia, St. Barbara Fleeing from her Father, and The Three Graces), a Gerrit Dou (A Woman Playing a Clavichord) and a painting by Adam Elsheimer (Susannah and the Elders).
Here’s their full haul:
These paintings were reported to be worth at least £3 million, but the stingy gallery director only offered a £1,000 reward for their safe return. So that didn’t make things look very promising initially.
But the police honestly made quick work of this case and were able to track down out of work ambulance driver Michael Hall, one of the thieves, within a week. Surprisingly, however, he never squealed on any of the other thieves and was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime. None of the others have ever been caught.
As for the paintings here, they were all recovered. Some of them were found in a bush near the gallery by a man walking his dog and the rest were found in a nearby cemetery shortly after. They were all unharmed, thankfully, and returned to the gallery.
Theft 2: 1973
The second theft isn’t quite as sophisticated or professional as the first. Since the gallery had a bit of a lacklustre security system, the paintings were not alarmed nor were they fixed to the wall. So a random man walks into the gallery one day, sees Jacob de Gheyn III, and takes it down, stuffs it under his sweater and just walks out.
I, like you, am at a loss here. How did he stuff it under his sweater and leave the gallery without anyone noticing? Even though the painting is small it is still a rectangular piece of wood with corners that would definitely show under a sweater. I’m just so confused.
He was found right after this incident biking away with the painting in his bike basket. When the police caught him they asked him why he stole the painting and he said that it reminded him of his mother. Honestly rude, unless his mother had a goatee.
With this incident too, the painting was taken back to the gallery unharmed.
Theft 3: 1981
This theft is the murkiest of them all because not that much information has been released about it. What we know is that on August 14, 1981, Jacob de Gheyn III was stolen yet again from the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
From what I could find, it is said that police had received a tip in late August about certain men who were said to have stolen the painting. They couldn’t just barge into their homes and arrest them on the strength of this tip alone so they kept them under surveillance for a few days before catching and arresting them in a taxi, coincidentally with the painting, on September 3. They had taken the work out of its frame but other than that it was unharmed and hadn’t been taken outside the country in the weeks it had been missing.
It was returned yet again to the gallery and reframed.
Theft 4: 1983
Now this one is the real, Hollywood heist. It happened after Dulwich actually (finally) updated their security system, spending $15,000 on the revamp. But that wasn’t good enough unfortunately.
Since the investigation for this one is apparently still ongoing the police haven’t released all that much information here either, just FYI.
In May 1983 a burglar, or maybe a team (?), broke into the Dulwich Picture Gallery in the best possible way. They used ladders to scale the building and get onto the roof, from there they smashed a skylight (as you can see there are quite a few to choose from) and dropped another ladder through the hole which they used to climb down into the gallery. If that isn’t straight out of a heist movie I don’t know what is. They climbed out the same way through the skylight, not bothering to take their ladders with them.
The alarm in the gallery was activated shortly after 1:00am and the police arrived at the scene in three minutes. THREE MINUTES. But the thieves had already grabbed the painting and escaped, maybe they left their ladders behind in the rush.
The only painting stolen in this robbery was Jacob de Gheyn III, in the frame this time. It was fixed to the wall more securely because of the security updates but the burglars solved this problem by using a crowbar to pry it off.
Not a lot is known about the investigation or the perpetrators or the discovery of the painting because, as mentioned, the investigation is ongoing. What we do know is that the police came up with nothing until over three years later in October 1986 they received an anonymous tip that a brown paper package containing the missing painting had been checked into the luggage office of a train station in Muenster, Germany. We don’t know how it was discovered that this package contained the Rembrandt or who alerted the police but they safely got the painting back miraculously unharmed.
So, happy ending here too, the painting was returned home to Dulwich.
Why This Painting?
What’s interesting about this painting is the attraction of thieves to it. The answer to why it keeps getting stolen is pretty understandable, it’s mostly attributed to its size and artist. Since it’s small it is easy to conceal and get away with, and, since it’s a Rembrandt thieves think that they’ll have an easy time taking it unnoticed and then offloading it. They’re right that it’s easy to escape with, as we have four examples of that here, and wrong about the second part but people don’t usually realize how hard stolen art is to sell.
Luckily it has returned to its home following every single theft and hopefully the gallery takes as many precautions as possible to keep it there, where it has been on display for over 170 years.
Works Cited
“Rembrandt Painting Stolen for a Fourth Time”. United Press International. 1983. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/05/28/Rembrandt-painting-stolen-for-fourth-time/6749422942400/
Wright, David. “The Takeaway Rembrandt”. Streatham. 2019. https://www.heartstreatham.co.uk/the-takeaway-rembrandt