The Van Mieris taken from Sydney

On Sunday 10 June 2007 the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney was open to the public. At some point between 10 am and 12.30 pm, someone took a small painting from the wall of a room of Dutch pictures. The gallery confirms the time window. Police later said that 5,000 to 6,000 people had visited that day, and that any of them might have seen something.

The painting was A Cavalier (Self-portrait) by Frans van Mieris the Elder, a painter from Leiden in the Dutch Republic. The gallery dates it to 1657 or 1659. It is oil on oak panel, only 20 by 16 centimetres. It shows a seated man in formal dress and a feathered cap, believed to be the artist. James Fairfax, an Australian publisher and philanthropist, had given it to the gallery in 1993.

The room had no security camera. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the painting was held on the wall by two screwed plates, and that a screwdriver and about 60 seconds would free it. It was the smallest of 13 paintings in the room. Sources differ on the guard. The ABC quotes the gallery director, Edmund Capon, as saying there was none. The Herald says one was present only now and then. Police said the picture had been expertly removed.

The theft became public on Thursday 14 June, four days later. The Associated Press reports that staff told police on the Monday, after a search of the gallery archives. Capon defended the delay. The FBI added the painting to its Top Ten Art Crimes list on 30 July 2007, with a value of over US$1 million. The insured value was A$1.4 million, according to the Herald and the ABC. Capon told the AP the insurance was US$1.17 million. These are insurance figures, not a sale price.

Police found little. In October 2007 the Herald reported no suspects, fingerprints, DNA or witnesses. A detective thought the painting had most likely left Australia, perhaps for London or Amsterdam. Police first did not rule out a gallery insider, which Capon rejected. By October they said they had no evidence of an inside job. Nobody has been named as a suspect, and nobody has been charged. Capon said the picture was almost unsaleable because it was so well known. He chose not to offer a reward, the Herald reports, though police had advised one.

New South Wales Police suspended the investigation in 2008, the Herald reported in May 2012. Police could only guess at a sale to a black market investor, and said no evidence exists for that. An investigator hired by the state government believed in 2012 that the painting was still in Australia, the Herald reported in June 2015, and one lead pointing to northern New South Wales was reportedly followed up. That report, the latest in major press, said the painting had never been recovered. A specialist consultancy, Argus Cultural Property Consultants, wrote in December 2024 that it was still missing. No recovery or sale has been reported, and its holder is unknown.