Five Masterpieces Missing in $123 Million Paris Heist

Many high-profile art thefts have ended in failure, with the artworks recovered as thieves struggle to trade their illegal bounty for cash. But some famous stolen works remain at large — such as those seized more than two decades ago from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Alice Farren-Bradley of the Art Loss Registry in London said the Paris theft appeared to be one of the biggest art heists ever, considering the prominence of the artists, the value of the paintings and the high profile of the museum.

Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso's "Le pigeon aux petit pois (The Pigeon with Green Peas)" was one of the stolen paintings.

However, she said it will be "virtually impossible" to sell such prominent paintings on the open market and typically stolen art fetches lower prices on the black market.

"Very often they can be used as collateral to broker other deals" involving drugs or weapons, she said. "They are not necessarily going to be bought by some great lover of the arts."

Art expert Jean-Marie Baron said the heist could have been organized by thieves who plan to sell the paintings to wealthy individuals in Russia, China or elsewhere, and "who won't verify the origins of the paintings." Another possibility was that the thieves planned to "ransom" the paintings in exchange for a big insurance payout, he said.

The FBI estimates the market for stolen art at $6 billion. The Art Loss Register has tallied up to 170,000 pieces of stolen, missing and looted art and valuables.

Picasso is the world's most stolen artist due to his prolific output and the value of his works. The Art Loss Register lists some 550 missing Picasso pieces, including paintings, lithographs, drawings and ceramics, as of 2007.

Hours after Thursday's heist, the director of the neighboring Palais de Tokyo modern art museum called the thieves "imbeciles."

"Those paintings are absolutely unsellable. First off because these are very well known paintings. And also because we are in a new civilization ... of instant global communication," Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr told AP Television News. "The entire planet has pictures of these paintings."

The loss is "like the death of a family member," lamented Flemming Friborg, manager of Copenhagen's Glyptotek museum, known for its Impressionist collection.