Reality does sometimes seem stranger than fiction, as when, for example, a week after the Louvre theft attracted global attention, a television series released an episode about a high-profile theft involving a Rembrandt artwork.
ABC series, titled high potentialIt tells the story of Morgan Gilory, a single mother of three children with enormous intellectual potential. Played by Kaitlin Olsen, she transitions from cleaning lady to personal consultant, helping the LAPD solve its toughest crimes.
This year’s midseason finale is titled “The One Who Got Away,” and follows Morgan and her partner, Detective Adam Karadek, as they investigate a museum robbery involving a $20 million Rembrandt painting young girl leaning on windowsill.
During the show’s heist, a thief enters the museum with a rope through a skylight, cuts through the glass and disables security cameras with a laser, before detonating a smoke bomb and escaping.
Teaming up with possibly shady art recovery expert Rhys Eastman, Morgan discovers that a stolen canvas has become the center of a bitter ownership battle after it was looted by the Nazis. (The actual Rembrandt painting has never been subject to restitution; it has been in the collection of Dulwich Gallery, London, since 1811.)
Despite the episode ending on a cliffhanger, Morgan provides some valuable insight into the theft, which she believes was carefully planned. Since the thief bypassed more valuable works of art to steal this particular painting, she speculated that the theft was for personal reasons and not just for money.
The show also raises the possibility that the fictional theft may be related to a series of other high-profile art thefts committed by an unidentified figure named John Baptiste.
The Louvre heist occurred shortly after the episode was written, so the play is likely an allusion to the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist in 1990, in which 13 pieces of art were stolen, three of which were works by Rembrandt. However, the manner in which the Rembrandt was stolen from the exhibition seemed eerily foreshadowed by the Louvre heist, in which thieves used a cherry picker and an angle grinder to break the glass and gain entry through a first-floor gallery window.
this high potential There is another similarity between the theft and the actual Louvre robbery: They both remain unsolved.
