Meet the Dutch art detective who's recovered a Van Gogh, Dali, and Picasso

Successful art thieves run into the problem of having a painting too famous to sell

This potentially explains why some robbers hold onto these pieces for years, even decades. Security experts say no reputable art dealers, or even black-market dealers, are willing to sell stolen works by famous artists like Van Gogh or Modigliani.

Some estimate that roughly 70% of artifacts in museums are stolen

New York City assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdano targets the illicit art world. Bogdano claims that traders and traffickers of stolen art have often been able to get away with their crimes due to their connections with members of the elite. His efforts have led to the recovery of around 4,500 antiquities valued at around $300M.

Learn about eight art heists that have gone terribly wrong

Half-baked plots, car troubles, and poor forgeries are some examples of blunders that led to failures in stealing works of art. For example, one heist by armed gunmen led to the theft of 20 van Gogh paintings. Before the robbers could declare victory, a flat tire on one of the getaway cars forced them to abandon the Dutch master's works and escape. They were later arrested for the crime.

Two men dressed as cops stole artwork from a Boston museum valued at over $500M at the time

On March 18, 1990, the thieves entered Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum pretending to be police officers responding to a disturbance. After overpowering and handcuffing the guards on duty, they stole 13 precious items, including works by Rembrandt and Manet. The theft is the largest art heist in US history. The pieces are still missing, and the museum is offering a $10M reward to anyone who provides valuable information about their location.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Picasso was on trial for the theft of the 'Mona Lisa'

On August 22, 1911, the world was stunned by the theft of the "Mona Lisa" from the Louvre in Paris. As an international investigation searched for the culprit, a young Picasso was suspected to be part of a group of its thieves. While innocent in the disappearance of the Mona Lisa, he found himself on trial with reasonable suspicion: He was in possession of two Iberian statues that were the property of the same museum.

Seventeen strange historical heists

High-dollar chocolate and cheese robberies to art thefts and audacious train robberies. Explore history's most peculiar stories of stealing with this list of seventeen tales of burglaries.

A stolen Norman Rockwell painting was found in Stephen Spielberg's collection

In 1989, the famed director purchased "Russian Schoolroom" from a legitimate dealer. He remained unaware that it was looted years prior from a gallery in Missouri until his staff spotted the painting on an FBI list of stolen works of art. In 2007, the FBI confirmed its authenticity.

Banksy turned graffiti into high art

The anonymous artist is renowned for his puckish, often stenciled street art. He's also known for the eye-popping sales those works command once they're up for auction. This podcast dives into the history of the singular artist, exploring how a British graffiti artist became a cultural icon.

In 1969, one British taxi driver stole a Goya from the National Gallery in London

Francisco de Goya's portrait "The Duke of Wellington" was believed to be seized by a criminal mastermind. In reality, a 60-something cabby named Kempton Bunton confessed to the crime about four years later. In 2021, it was revealed that he was actually covering for the actions of his son. The heist has since been immortalized in the film "The Duke."

A ‘Bored Ape’ NFT was once kidnapped

An art heist in the crypto world plunges listeners of the "Search Engine" podcast into another mystery about why so many celebrities suddenly started selling the public on NFTs in 2021.

The strange, unsolved story of Filippo Bernardini and the stolen book manuscripts

Over the last five years, a mysterious figure has been stealing manuscripts, often unpublished, from individuals and organizations in the publishing industry across three continents. The scammer, later identified as Filippo Bernardini, was an...

The explorer who re-discovered Machu Picchu

If there was a real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones, it may well have been Hiram Bingham, the Yale University historian who set out to find the rumored “lost city” of the Inca. This short feature from the BBC’s History magazine explains how this son of missionaries brought international renown to the site and to himself. In the process, he sparked an international feud that would last more than a century.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Meet the psychologist who reads people through the art they live with

Dimitrios Tsivrikos, an academic psychologist at University College London, says the art someone hangs in their home reveals as much about them as a bookshelf would. He advises going on a first date at a museum and asking each other about the work on the walls.

Fascinating facts about Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí wasn’t just a famous surrealist painter, he was a master of spectacle. Known for leaving restaurant sketches as payment and believing he was his late brother’s reincarnation, Dalí blurred the line between art and persona. He even collaborated with Walt Disney on an experimental short, shelved for decades before its 2003 release.

The Texas Ranger turned 'serial killer whisperer'

Texas Ranger James Holland earned a reputation for squeezing confessions from suspected serial killers, including the country's most prolific serial killer, Samuel Little. This reputation led the LA Times to declare him "a serial killer whisperer of sorts." With methods ranging from hypnotism to lies, this award-winning article dives into the question of whether this ranger's legal lasso ever ensnared innocents and diluted witness testimony.

The Guggenheim houses works from some of pop art’s biggest names

British writer and curator Lawrence Alloway was an early champion of pop art—some claim he coined the term in 1958. He organized the 1963 “Six Painters and the Object” exhibition at the Guggenheim, featuring heavy hitters including Johns, Lichtenstein, and Warhol.

What do archaeologists actually do?

Movies and other media show them digging a bit, maybe fighting off artifact smugglers, but what archaeologists actually do? Using a variety of tools and sciences, archaeologists are able to get a glimpse into humanity's past. This article explains what work is like for everyday archaeologists.

Searching for Albert Einstein's stolen brain

Within moments of Einstein's 1955 death, someone reportedly ferreted away the 76-year-old genius's brain. Decades later, a reporter's editor told them to solve the case. This 64-minute podcast episode follows the work of Steven Levy, the reporter who ultimately tracked down Einstein's brain, which had been sliced and stored in slides, goo, and a cardboard box in a scientist's office.

The Louvre in Paris has its own particle accelerator for art analysis

The Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire serves as a noninvasive tool for identifying and quantifying trace elements present in artworks by analyzing how particles backscatter off targets. This information can help detect forgeries and determine a piece's provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Peter Brueghel's 'Hunters in the Snow' depicts winter beauty and hardship

The Dutch painter and printmaker is known for centering ordinary subjects at a time when protestant iconoclasts protested religious images and reduced the Church's role as an arts patron. The famous painting is often viewed as a cozy winter scene, but reveals the difficulties of harsh winters during the Little Ice Age in Europe.

The Canadian artist considered the 'Picasso of the North'

Norval Morrisseau's art is bold, with vivid colors and striking angles. His interviews were similar, with the artist often challenging the way questions were posed and his life was characterized, believing he was being unfairly pigeonholed as an Indigenous artist. This overview of Morisseau's work and life is a helpful primer on the artist, the perfect place to start before jumping into the deep end.

Read the New York Times profile of TAKI 183

The 1971 article about the young graffiti artist and his many acolytes exposed the burgeoning subculture to a large audience and also detailed the effort to clean the work from the city's walls. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Meet the hidden Americans

Who represents America? This stunning interactive photo essay by Dutch artist Robin de Puy reveals a world many in the mainstream US do not see. She traveled thousands of miles to document the stories of individuals across the country, compiling them in dozens of episodes spread across three parts, revealing the messy nuances of everyday life for everyday people. Search the index or click through episode to episode in this spectacular project.

The story of Kryptos, the long unsolved cryptographic sculpture outside the CIA's headquarters

Made by American artist Jim Sanborn, the sculpture features four copper plates engraved with messages written with the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and question marks. The last of these plates was solved in 2025, but the piece remains of interest to cryptoanalysts.

Some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters were designed by Drew Struzan

The artist is responsible for iconic posters advertising "Indiana Jones," "Hook," "The Goonies," and more. His distinctive style—sometimes painted by hand, sometimes drawn with an airbrush—defined the era of the family-friendly family blockbuster.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.