he faces 20 years in prison.
The Vjeran Tomic, a skilled rock climber from Serbia, admitted to carrying out the heist. In May 2010, he and two alleged accomplices got into one of the most-visited galleries in Paris, by breaking the window. The museum’s alarms had been on repair, and Tomic has somehow knocked out a security camera.
Three guards were on duty that night, but the paintings were only found to be missing the next day just as the museum prepared to open: empty frames were hanging on place of the paintings.
The presiding judge at the trial said that the heist was carried out with "disconcerting ease."
Left: Pablo Picasso, Dove with Green Peas, 1911.
After detention in May 2011, Tomic told the police he had initially planned to steal only Ferdinand Leger’s Still Life with Candlestick (1922), not thinking he would also be able to grab another four. Besides the Leger’s painting, the other works stolen were Picasso’s cubist Dove with Green Peas (1911) — alone worth an estimated 25 million euros — as well as Matisse’s Pastoral (1905), Braque’s Olive Tree near Estate (1906), and Modigliani’s Woman with a Fan (1919).
All canvases but the Modigliani were hung in the same room in the museum. The Modern Art Museum is located in the well-heeled 16th district of Paris, which is home to more than 8,000 works of 20th-century art.
Left: Ferdinand Leger, Still Life with Candlestick, 1922.