Landscape with frozen canal, skaters and an ice-boat by Adam van Breen
This is Adam van Breen's 'Landscape with Frozen Canal, Skaters and an Ice-Boat', painted in 1611 and held at the Rijksmuseum. It looks like a simple winter day, but this painting was at the center of one of the most famous art heists in modern history.
Look at the dark triangle of the ice-boat sail against the pale sky, and the translucent ice rendered in the foreground. Van Breen painted a cross-section of Dutch life on the canal, from the working figures pushing the ice-boat to the elegant skaters in the middle distance. The red roofs in the background anchor the scene in a specific, prosperous town.
In the early 1970s, a thief simply lifted the painting from a museum wall. The crime went unsolved for over two decades, with the FBI listing it among the top ten unsolved art crimes in the world. The break came in 1999, when a tip led investigators to a locker where the 388-year-old painting had been hidden, still intact.
The case was reopened after a museum visitor recognized the painting in a crime bulletin. How does a stolen object survive 23 years in hiding, only to resurface in perfect condition?
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Transcript
A quiet Dutch winter from the year 1611. Look at the ice beneath these skaters. It held for over 400 years. Until it was stolen. The thieves took it right off a museum wall. The FBI listed it among the world's top ten art crimes. Twenty-three years of silence. Then, a tip. It was found in a plain brown wrapper, in a locker.