Rogues in the Gallery

A 3 a.m. quiet hung over Paris' Museum of Modern Art one day last week when Guard Antoine Albertini heard a spine-tingling sound coming from the main gallery; he was not a nervous man, but the gallery held most of the 114 famous paintings of the "Masterpieces of the 20th Century" exhibit (TIME, June 2) and they were worth millions. Albertini cat-footed to the doorway and froze in his tracks. Visible in the glow from the windows were two men cutting masterpieces out of their frames with razors. Albertini whipped out his pistol, cried, "Haut les mains!'"

At a nearby police station, where the captives were locked up, the cops reported the haul and the damages. The haul: two 19-year-olds, one a student, the other a bartender, who said they were "crazy" about art and wanted some masterpieces of their own. The damaged paintings: Renoir's Seated Nude, lent by the Chicago Art Institute and valued at $100,000, Picasso's Woman Ironing, lent by a Manhattan collector and valued at $100,000, Bonnard's Self-Portrait, from another Manhattan collector and valued at $25,000, and Gauguin's la Orana Maria, from the Metropolitan Museum. All four had been slashed, and two completely cut from their frames one to two inches from the edges. Shaken museum officials promised that expert restoration would hide the razor marks so no one would ever notice.

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