The thief, or thieves, was either very smart or very, very lucky.
The side door of the home in the hills of Encino was unlocked on the Saturday morning in late August. The elderly owners were in a back room, otherwise occupied. The maid had stepped out.
So the thief stepped in -- and made quick work of the wealthy real estate investors' multimillion-dollar art collection. Marc Chagall's "Les Paysans," gone. Diego Rivera's "Mexican Peasant," a blank spot on the wall. Arshile Gorky's "Cubist Still Life," ditto.
By the time the maid returned about an hour later, at least a dozen artworks -- frames and all -- had been stripped from the home. A collection that took more than half a century to compile was dismantled in less than 60 minutes. The anti-theft system, for whatever reason, did not prevent the heist.
"Somebody did this very quickly," said Det. Donald Hrycyk of the Los Angeles Police Department's art theft detail.
Both art experts and authorities described the art theft as one of the largest in Los Angeles history. The crime, which occurred Aug. 23 but was announced Tuesday, had the art world buzzing.
Police announced a $200,000 reward for information leading to the paintings' return. But they would not elaborate on where the money came from, saying only that it was not a government source. The LAPD statement on the incident referred to a single "thief," but officials said they are not sure whether it was a lone suspect or a group.
They have not released the victims' names or the crime's location. And they are struggling to put together a description of the suspect to help narrow their search for the paintings.
"We try to gauge the sophistication of the thief, because it may give us an indication of whether [the artwork] will show up at a swap meet or a thrift shop," said Hrycyk, who has been investigating art thieves for 14 years. "Somebody may sit on it for a decade before trying to sell it overseas."
Each painting is worth at least six figures, some upward of $1 million, said Richard Rice, a senior consultant for 21 years at Gallerie Michael on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and the collection was on par with those of A-list Hollywood celebrities.
The stolen artworks include Emil Nolde's "Figur mit Hund" (Figure With Dog), 1912; Lyonel Feininger's "Fin de Seance," 1910; Chaim Soutine's "La Vieille Dame au Chien" (Old Woman with Dog), 1919; Soutine's "La Femme en Rouge" (Woman in Red), 1926; Kees van Dongen's "Alicia Alanova," 1933; and Hans Hofmann's Untitled (Blue Bottle), 1947, authorities said.
