We don't approve of your highway robbery

TMT has long romanticized the idea of art thievery. Secretly, we imagine we are Thomas Crown (I'm McQueen and Adam's Brosnan), and that through high jinx and guile, we procure the world's masterpieces to enjoy them in our personal study. We are atwitter at the prospect of having access to revered artwork. But here's the thing: Thomas Crown appreciated the art, and in the end returned it to the people. Your editors are appalled at the nature of Sunday's theft of four important paintings by van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Cézanne from a museum in Zurich in what looks to be Europe's largest art theft.

From the NYtimes: "Three thieves, wearing dark clothes and ski masks, walked into the Emile Bührle Foundation...While one held a pistol and ordered visitors and staff members to lie on the floor in the main room of the museum, the two other men removed the four paintings from the wall: Monet’s “Poppy Field at Vetheuil,” “Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter” by Degas, Van Gogh’s “Blooming Chestnut Branches,” and Cézanne’s “Boy in the Red Waistcoat.” After the theft, the men fled in a white car, with the trunk open and the paintings visible, witnesses said."

This is no way to treat these paintings, thieves! It makes us sad to think of the way Poppy, Ludovic, Branches, and Boy are being man handled. Clearly these thieves are not aficionados; they are just interested in the bottom line (total worth is estimated at $163 million). From one art thief to another: shame.