Francisco Goya's 1978 "Witches in Air" is subject of auction house theft in Danny Boyle's fictional film "Trance"

Francisco Goya's Witches in Air, 1798
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

In Danny Boyle's fictional movie, Trance, Francisco Goya's $25 million painting is stolen during an auction in a choreographed heist. One of the thieves, Simon (James MacAlvoy), works at the auction house. Simon betrays his accomplices before a bump on his head precedes a case of amnesia. Rosario Dawson is the hypnotherapist and Vincent Cassel (who played an art thief in Oceans 13) is the criminal boss applying the pressure on the bewildered lad with the big blue eyes and Scottish brogue to recall where he hid the stolen painting.

In reality, Goya's Witches in Air is owned by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The 1798 oil painting is not on display:

Three bare-chested characters wearing dunce caps hold a fourth, nude character in the air while another lies on the floor, covering his ears, A sixth figure flees, his head covered with a white cloth. With his hand, he makes the gesture intended to protect him from the evil eye. At the right of the scene, a donkey stands out against the neutral background.

This was one of six canvases Goya sold to the Duke and Duchess of Osuna in 1798, as decoration for their country house in La Alameda. They are linked to the etchings from his Caprichos series, in which he presented scenes of witches and witchcraft similar to this one.

This painting was acquired by the Prado Museum in 1999 with funds from the Villaescusa legacy.

The film also includes references to Rembrandt's "Sea of Galilee" stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 (the whereabouts of Dutch master's only seascape is publicly unknown) and an imagined room of "lost paintings" including Caravaggio's Nativity (stolen from a church in Palermo in 1969 and rumored to have been eaten by pigs).

Francisco Goya's Witches in Air, 1798
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

In Danny Boyle's fictional movie, Trance, Francisco Goya's $25 million painting is stolen during an auction in a choreographed heist. One of the thieves, Simon (James MacAlvoy), works at the auction house. Simon betrays his accomplices before a bump on his head precedes a case of amnesia. Rosario Dawson is the hypnotherapist and Vincent Cassel (who played an art thief in Oceans 13) is the criminal boss applying the pressure on the bewildered lad with the big blue eyes and Scottish brogue to recall where he hid the stolen painting.

In reality, Goya's Witches in Air is owned by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The 1798 oil painting is not on display:

Three bare-chested characters wearing dunce caps hold a fourth, nude character in the air while another lies on the floor, covering his ears, A sixth figure flees, his head covered with a white cloth. With his hand, he makes the gesture intended to protect him from the evil eye. At the right of the scene, a donkey stands out against the neutral background.

This was one of six canvases Goya sold to the Duke and Duchess of Osuna in 1798, as decoration for their country house in La Alameda. They are linked to the etchings from his Caprichos series, in which he presented scenes of witches and witchcraft similar to this one.

This painting was acquired by the Prado Museum in 1999 with funds from the Villaescusa legacy.

The film also includes references to Rembrandt's "Sea of Galilee" stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 (the whereabouts of Dutch master's only seascape is publicly unknown) and an imagined room of "lost paintings" including Caravaggio's Nativity (stolen from a church in Palermo in 1969 and rumored to have been eaten by pigs).

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Art Crime in Film: Art Theft and Helen Mirren Starring in "Painted Lady" (1997)

Judith Slaying Holofernes
by Artemisia Gentileschi at the Uffizi Gallery 

Just for fun ...

"Painted Lady" features the beautiful Helen Mirren, art crime, and an Hérmes handbag.

Mirren stars in the 1997 three hour TV movie "Painted Lady" as a 'retired' singer and former drug addict who poses as aristocratic art collector (accessorized with a black Hérmes Kelly bag) to safe the life of a family friend who owes drug money to dangerous Irish criminals.  The heavily art-themed plot involves the theft of an Irish manor, theft for insurance money, reattribution of a painting, a sale at an auction house, and looted art from Italy during World War II.

Maggie Sheridan lives in a cottage on the Irish estate of a family friend, Sir Charles Stafford.  One night while Maggie is blissfully entertaining a friend, burglars clip the barb wire surrounding the property and drive up to the house.  They smash the glass of a French door and set off the alarm, awakening Charles.  The house dog barks furiously from behind a closed door.  One thief carries a framed painting out to the truck, the other thief is cutting a canvas from its frame when Charles, holding a gun, stops the thief from stealing the portrait of his deceased wife.  The threatened thief shoots Charles dead.  After driving away, the thieves switch the painting to a second vehicle, blow up the getaway car, and then deliver the large canvas to their boss who orders it to be burned.  One of the thieves only pretends to burn the painting and later tries to sell the painting.

Maggie's life is turned upside down when she finds out that it was the cash-strapped Charles who orchestrated the theft of recently insured paintings in order to pay off the 60,000 pound debt his drug-addicted son Sebastian owes to a dangerous Irish gangster.

The movie features Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi which is on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

"Painted Lady" is available on DVD or through a video subscription service such as Netflix.

Judith Slaying Holofernes
by Artemisia Gentileschi at the Uffizi Gallery 

Just for fun ...

"Painted Lady" features the beautiful Helen Mirren, art crime, and an Hérmes handbag.

Mirren stars in the 1997 three hour TV movie "Painted Lady" as a 'retired' singer and former drug addict who poses as aristocratic art collector (accessorized with a black Hérmes Kelly bag) to safe the life of a family friend who owes drug money to dangerous Irish criminals.  The heavily art-themed plot involves the theft of an Irish manor, theft for insurance money, reattribution of a painting, a sale at an auction house, and looted art from Italy during World War II.

Maggie Sheridan lives in a cottage on the Irish estate of a family friend, Sir Charles Stafford.  One night while Maggie is blissfully entertaining a friend, burglars clip the barb wire surrounding the property and drive up to the house.  They smash the glass of a French door and set off the alarm, awakening Charles.  The house dog barks furiously from behind a closed door.  One thief carries a framed painting out to the truck, the other thief is cutting a canvas from its frame when Charles, holding a gun, stops the thief from stealing the portrait of his deceased wife.  The threatened thief shoots Charles dead.  After driving away, the thieves switch the painting to a second vehicle, blow up the getaway car, and then deliver the large canvas to their boss who orders it to be burned.  One of the thieves only pretends to burn the painting and later tries to sell the painting.

Maggie's life is turned upside down when she finds out that it was the cash-strapped Charles who orchestrated the theft of recently insured paintings in order to pay off the 60,000 pound debt his drug-addicted son Sebastian owes to a dangerous Irish gangster.

The movie features Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi which is on display at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

"Painted Lady" is available on DVD or through a video subscription service such as Netflix.

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Art Crime in Film: Jø Nesbo's "Headhunter" steals art from corporate executives looking for new jobs

Here's another example of how an art thief is portrayed in a movie.

The 2011 Swedish film "Headhunter" (the English title now playing in theaters in the U. S.) based on the book by Swedish crime writer Jø Nesbo features a corporate management recruiter in Norway who steals art to compensate for his 'bad genes' and -- in his mind -- his less than desirable stature of 'five feet, six inches' (168 centimeters).  The protagonist narrates that the money earned from stealing art pays for the lifestyle that allows him to keep happy his beautiful statuesque wife.

In this fictional film, the movie's hero, Roger, obtains information from high-level managers seeking new employment that will enable him to rob the client -- is anyone home during the day? do you have a dog? do you own a valuable work of art? Roger has an accomplice who works at a protective security firm who disengages the residential alarm during the burglary.  Roger, in protective clothing, is careful not to leave any DNA evidence and replaces the original artwork with a reproduction before leaving the residence -- all within ten minutes.  Roger hides the stolen paintings in the roof of his car then parks in his garage for his accomplice to retrieve and then sell through a fence in Sweden.

Caledonian Boar Hunt by School of Rubens/Rueters Photo

Roger, under financial pressure, is looking for an expensive painting that will allow him to pay off his outstanding debts and finds out through his lovely wife that a man brought a painting by Peter Paul Ruben's that his grandmother received from a German officer during World War II.

Hiding a painting in the lining of the roof of a car is exactly where thieves hid Cézanne's painting "Boy with a Red Waistcoat" discovered by Serbian police last month.

In the film, one of the artworks stolen is that by Edvard Munch; the other painting, The Caledonian Boar Hunt by Peter Paul Rubens, was allegedly lost during the Nazi occupation of Ruben's hometown of Antwerp.  A painting similar to the image used in the film and by the same title was discovered in Greece last September.  Greece police recovered the 17th century oil sketch ten years after it had been stolen from the Fine Arts Museum of Ghent in Belgium.

Here's another example of how an art thief is portrayed in a movie.

The 2011 Swedish film "Headhunter" (the English title now playing in theaters in the U. S.) based on the book by Swedish crime writer Jø Nesbo features a corporate management recruiter in Norway who steals art to compensate for his 'bad genes' and -- in his mind -- his less than desirable stature of 'five feet, six inches' (168 centimeters).  The protagonist narrates that the money earned from stealing art pays for the lifestyle that allows him to keep happy his beautiful statuesque wife.

In this fictional film, the movie's hero, Roger, obtains information from high-level managers seeking new employment that will enable him to rob the client -- is anyone home during the day? do you have a dog? do you own a valuable work of art? Roger has an accomplice who works at a protective security firm who disengages the residential alarm during the burglary.  Roger, in protective clothing, is careful not to leave any DNA evidence and replaces the original artwork with a reproduction before leaving the residence -- all within ten minutes.  Roger hides the stolen paintings in the roof of his car then parks in his garage for his accomplice to retrieve and then sell through a fence in Sweden.

Caledonian Boar Hunt by School of Rubens/Rueters Photo

Roger, under financial pressure, is looking for an expensive painting that will allow him to pay off his outstanding debts and finds out through his lovely wife that a man brought a painting by Peter Paul Ruben's that his grandmother received from a German officer during World War II.

Hiding a painting in the lining of the roof of a car is exactly where thieves hid Cézanne's painting "Boy with a Red Waistcoat" discovered by Serbian police last month.

In the film, one of the artworks stolen is that by Edvard Munch; the other painting, The Caledonian Boar Hunt by Peter Paul Rubens, was allegedly lost during the Nazi occupation of Ruben's hometown of Antwerp.  A painting similar to the image used in the film and by the same title was discovered in Greece last September.  Greece police recovered the 17th century oil sketch ten years after it had been stolen from the Fine Arts Museum of Ghent in Belgium.

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