Art of the Heist

2006

5.0

1 review

Eligible

Watch in a web browser or on supported devices Learn More

Season 1 episodes (14)

1 The Big Sting

3/3/06

Season-only

Prison inmates plan the ingenious heist of two Rembrandts and a Renoir worth $80 million from the National Museum in Stockholm. Authorities assemble an equally brilliant sting operation that leads all the way to Los Angeles.

2 The World's Biggest Heist

3/10/06

Season-only

Disguised as cops, two thieves remove $500 million in art from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the biggest art theft in history. The hunt for the stolen Vermeer and Rembrandts takes investigators from the shady underworld of Boston mobsters to the dangerous turf of Irish paramilitaries.

3 The Forger and the Conman

3/17/06

Season-only

A songwriter-turned-forger joins a smooth-talking con man to rake in millions selling counterfeit paintings. As Scotland Yard zeroes in on the duo, the cops discover that the scam reaches into the inner sanctums of England’s most famous museums, threatening the legacies of the world’s greatest artists.

4 The Search for The Scream

3/24/06

Season-only

The Scream, painted by Edvard Munch in 1893, plumbs the depths of dread. Its theft from the National Gallery in Oslo leaves authorities equally vexed as they struggle to fathom a motive for the crime. But as the investigation unfolds, the cops discover the thieves’ offenses go far beyond art theft.

5 Chasing Cezanne

3/31/06

Season-only

The robbery of a Cézanne still life from the rustic home of an art collector shocks residents of a sleepy New England town. But as investigators run out of clues, a revelation from an unlikely source puts the investigation into a stunning new perspective.

6 Den of Antiquities

4/7/06

Season-only

War-torn Cypress of the 1970s becomes a playground for treasure hunters eager to raid the country’s early churches. When an ambitious art dealer sets her sights on a mosaic of Christ as a child, she unveils a patchwork of unscrupulous art dealers, con men, and smugglers.

7 The Lady in Gold

4/6/07

Season-only

Gustav Klimt composed more than 200 sketches of Adele Bloch-Bauer before rendering the Austrian socialite on canvas in luminous gold hues. It took the Nazis only one night to confiscate her portrait and set off a battle for possession of the canvas that lasted more than six decades.

8 The Pharaoh's Head

4/13/07

Season-only

An ex-soldier employs an ingenious method of smuggling ancient Egyptian artifacts through customs for a big payday in England. But the discovery in his house of several artifacts—including the sculpture of Amenhotep’s head—leads to a harsh crackdown from authorities bent on enforcing international law.

9 Miami Sting

4/20/07

Season-only

A thief brazenly nabs two Rubens sketches from a Spanish museum, setting off an investigation that stretches from the galleries of Stockholm to the sun-drenched streets of Miami Beach. To recover the 17th-century treasure, cops enlist an art history professor to risk his life in an undercover operation.

10 The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa

4/27/07

Season-only

When the iconic Mona Lisa painting disappears from the Louvre Museum under the nose of the staff, a cloud of suspicion hovers over a motley collection of Parisians that includes Pablo Picasso. After authorities close in on the culprit, a shocking confession hints at a conspiracy.

11 The Russian Conspiracy

5/4/07

Season-only

After priceless treasures vanish from St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, authorities target a curator and her family as suspects. But as the investigation widens and more people fall victim to brutal Russian justice, evidence suggests the heist was the work of forces seeking to rock the world-famous museum to its foundations.

12 On the Trail of Moche Gold

5/11/07

Season-only

A shimmering gold headdress is looted from an ancient Moche tomb in the Peruvian desert. Later, an art dealer is found bludgeoned to death in his Lima apartment. Was it murder, or an ancient curse? The answer may lie with a slippery art collector whose dealings leave a trail of suspicion.

13 The Disappeared

5/18/07

Season-only

When paintings vanish from a Buenos Aires gallery, suspicion falls on feared members of Argentina’s brutal junta. The chase for the canvases leads to Taiwan and London and a black market involving stolen art and guns for the Argentinian regime.

14 The Thieving Don Juan

5/25/07

Season-only

The disappearance of a priceless Renaissance sculpture from the Museum of Art History in Vienna leaves authorities baffled. Why didn’t guards answer the alarm? Did a Balkan warlord order the heist? The answers may lie with a handsome security guard who has a way with women—and ample skill with alarm systems.

About this show

They turned crime into an art form. Meet the crooks who plundered artistic treasures, sending shock waves through the art scene and setting off frantic dragnets across the globe. This thrilling documentary unlocks gallery doors to chronicle history’s most notorious art thefts—from nabbing the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre in broad daylight to the still-unsolved blockbuster heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Vivid reenactments show how cunning break-ins, scams, and forgeries netted millions of dollars and became front-page news. Follow the trail of stolen art as it passes through the hands of unscrupulous dealers and shadowy smugglers, then often into obscurity. In candid interviews, the thieves who stole the art and the investigators who chased them share insights into crimes committed in galleries, tombs, and mansions from Egypt to Sweden. Some of the colorful characters suspected in the thefts include mobster Whitey Bulger, Nazi Hermann Göring, and even painter Pablo Picasso.

Ratings and reviews

5.0

1 review

deborah elliott

October 26, 2020

Excellent program, fascinating tour of the art world, with very interesting people from law enforcement. Anyone who purchases paintings would be wise to watch this informative series!