The Louvre heist: Could it happen in Pittsburgh?

Dai Morgan, president of Pittsburgh Society of Artists, believes that the art we cherish — whether displayed in galleries, museums or in our homes — is among the most valuable of all possessions.

“This is something that connects us to history and to our past,” Morgan said.

When such works are taken or destroyed, the damage is irreversible and the loss impossible to recover, he said.

The shock waves from Sunday’s daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris have crossed the Atlantic, prompting the art world to question whether something similar could happen elsewhere. As authorities investigate the heist, members of Pennsylvania’s art community reflected on the magnitude of such a loss.

Worry from across the pond

On Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m., a group of thieves broke into the Louvre in Paris, using a crane to smash an upstairs window. While inside the art museum, they stole priceless jewelry from an area that holds the French crown jewels and escaped on motorbikes, the French government said.

The robbery was carried out in about four minutes.

TribLive spoke with Robert Wittman, former senior investigator and founder of the FBI’s National Art Crime Team, based out of Philadelphia, about the heist on Monday.

“What people thought was that these guys were construction workers who were going in, maybe doing some emergency … repair work inside the museum,” Wittman said. “They did it very quickly and had plans to get away using mopeds, which is what the European criminals usually do, because it makes it much easier to get through the traffic in the narrow streets.”

Wittman, who worked as a special agent for over 20 years, said that the robbery was the third in a series of similar crimes across Europe in the past year. These included the theft of items from the Romanian royal family, which were stolen while on exhibit in the Netherlands, as well as another robbery just last month at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Pittsburgh had its own high profile art theft in 2017. Two men stole more than $8.1 million worth of rare books and artifacts from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Police charged the pair with pilfering books and other written material from the library over 25 years, describing it as the largest antique book art theft in the world. Former librarian Gregory Priore and John Schulman, owner of Caliban Book Shop in Oakland, both pleaded guilty to crimes surrounding the Carnegie thefts.

Despite the uptick in museum heists across the pond, Wittman said he thinks it is unlikely the states will begin seeing the same trend.

“We have different types of security systems. It’s not the same in Europe, the security systems are totally different. We have armed guards. We have immediate response with police departments. You can’t go from country to country, (like) in Europe, if you steal something,” Wittman said. “Here you can go to another state, but there’s still the same amount of policemen. It’s still the same country. You can’t go anywhere.”

A tour with too much ‘spice’

On the morning of the robbery at the Louvre, a group of 35 people from Lancaster, Pa. was touring the building as part of a theater excursion.

Marc Robin, executive artistic producer for the Fulton Theatre, organized a trip to Paris that included tours of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and other artistic and cultural landmarks in the city of love. As his tour group began climbing the stairs and rounding a bend, they were suddenly stopped, he said.

“There was another group that sort of was being pushed past us, out of the room. So it was obvious something was going on. But we thought of somebody in distress,” Robin said.

Robin and the rest of his tour group were told to leave the area.

“All the personnel started coming down the escalators, … they were very clear,” he said, remembering the reaction of the French authorities. “We need you to move in an orderly fashion, but we need you to move now.”

Robin grabbed the large flag he brought with the theatre group’s name on it and began trying to gather everyone together as they exited the building.

One of the tour guides told them there had been a robbery, he said.

Robin said he expected the trip to create some excitement for the theatre group however, “it got spiced up a little bit too much,” he told Triblive on Monday.

“This is something we remember for the rest of our lives, and it is actually a point of history,” Robin said.

A loss to the art community

Pennsylvania is home to thousands of museums open for tours. In Pittsburgh alone, visitors can explore the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, The Andy Warhol Museum, and numerous privately owned art galleries.

Rusty Baker, executive director of PA Museums, said the heist might prompt institutions across the state to reexamine their security measures.

Still, like Wittman, Baker said he doesn’t expect to see any copycat crimes in Pennsylvania.

Morgan agreed, noting he isn’t worried about Pittsburgh’s museums given how difficult it would be to sell such high-profile items.

“This is such an anomaly. I can’t believe that that they’ll be able to fence these things. You know, maybe they can take them apart. But … these are such unique pieces that who’s going to want to touch them?” Morgan said.

Baker said that with easy access to security cameras, he does not anticipate a major overhaul of museum policies.

The Andy Warhol Museum could not be reached for comment.

Carnegie Museums did not make anyone available for comment.

“It’s not going to stop us from doing what we do or engaging with the various kinds of other art organizations and dealers and galleries and so on,” Morgan said about the art community in Pittsburgh.