The Leonardo taken from Drumlanrig Castle

At about 11 am on Wednesday 27 August 2003, a tour party followed a guide through Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill in Dumfries and Galloway. The castle belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch. Two of the group were not visitors. In the staircase hall they overpowered a 25-year-old guide, took a small painting off the wall and left through a window as the alarms sounded. Two accomplices waited outside in a white Volkswagen Golf, which police later found abandoned in woods about three miles away.

The painting was the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, an oil on panel of about 1501, 48.4 by 36.8 centimetres. The Christ Child looks at a yarnwinder shaped like a cross. The National Galleries of Scotland says scholars disagree about how much is by Leonardo. It says the figures are likely his and the landscape was probably added by another artist. Press reports call it attributed to Leonardo.

The trial heard that a man put a hand over the guide’s mouth and said they would kill her if she did not lie down. Police later said one raider carried an axe and the other a crowbar. An early report in The Times had said the guide was held at knifepoint. Press estimates put the value at 30 million pounds or more. No sale has set a price. The Duke had insured the panel for slightly less than 4 million pounds, and the insurers paid about 3.8 million.

The Guardian reports that the inquiry was wound down in 2005 and that the FBI then listed the painting among its top ten stolen artworks. From about 2004, undercover officers dealt with a man who said he could arrange its return. On 10 August 2007 Marshall Ronald, an English solicitor, wrote to a loss adjuster acting for the Duke and his insurer, offering the safe return of the painting for a finder’s fee. The loss adjuster told police, and an undercover officer posed as the Duke’s agent and agreed a total of 4.25 million pounds. The 9th Duke had died on 4 September 2007.

At about 11 am on 4 October 2007, police raided a meeting at a solicitors’ office in West Regent Street, Glasgow. They took the painting, which was undamaged. Five men were charged with conspiracy to extort 4.25 million pounds from the Duke, his son and the insurer. None was charged with the robbery. The trial opened in Edinburgh on 1 March 2010. The Crown said the men used the methods of kidnap and extortion. The defence said they wanted a lawful return and were led into a police trap. On 21 April 2010 the jury returned its verdicts. Marshall Ronald and the private investigators Robert Graham and John Doyle were found not proven. Calum Jones and David Boyce, both Glasgow solicitors, were found not guilty. Not proven is a Scottish verdict that acquits without declaring the accused innocent.

The BBC reported in August 2023 that no one had been arrested for the theft. The robbers, and those who held the painting from 2003 to 2007, have never been named. Ronald later sued the 10th Duke for 4.25 million pounds, saying the undercover officer had authority to agree the fee. On 18 June 2015 Lord Brailsford dismissed the claim. He described the arrangements as no more than a scheme designed and controlled by the police.

The Buccleuch family lent the painting to the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, where it went on display on 17 December 2009. The BBC reported in 2023 that it still hangs there.