Museum Security Network

In March 1990, the Gardner Museum was inadvertently exposed by a night guard, who failed to follow museum security procedure when he opened the museum’s door for two policemen without first confirming that police headquarters had sent the officers. In this case, a procedural error in museum security resulted in the single greatest art theft in history. This past Thursday, Paris’s Musee d’art Moderne was victimized after numerous lapses in museum security practice and procedure. The thief (or thieves) stole the following priceless works:

Surprisingly, the thief spent fifteen minutes inside the museum (floor plan pictured at right). Although it is only a fraction of the time that thieves spent at the Gardner in 1990, it may indicate that the thief was moderately familiar with the museum, or at the very least, was confident that he would not be discovered by the three night guards on duty. The Picasso is said to have hung in room 1 while the Modigliani was located in room 8 (see the Plan détaillé des collections permanentes at right). This further highlights how confident the thief was that he would not be detected as he traversed the museum’s galleries.

Yesterday, the NYTimes reported, “the mayor of the French capital on Friday demanded an internal investigation to probe weaknesses in the city’s security system that malfunctioned during the break-in.” A few questions investigators may begin with are why was the art theft not discovered until 7am the following morning? Why were the three night guards not performing routine walkthroughs of the museum premises every few hours? If there were security cameras inside the museum, then were the night guards monitoring them? Were there added security measures implemented in light of the alarm system having been broken for two months?

Currently, there are many conjectures as to the thief’s identity that range from a disgruntled former employee to a Balkan-based crime syndicate. Additionally, many have attempted to guess his motivations, or modus operandi. Until a ransom note is received, or the stolen art surfaces elsewhere, much of this is only educated guesswork.

Regardless, museum security directors across the globe should be on heightened alert and should increase the security at their institutions because one can say for certain that this art theft, which occurred after the Paris museum had recently completed a €15 million ($19 million) safety and security upgrade, will most definitely inspire other opportunistic art thieves abroad.

*Originally posted at Art Theft Central

http://arttheftcentral.blogspot.com/2010/05/art-theft-musee-dart-moderne-de-la.html