Days Before the Louvre Jewel Heist, the Oakland Museum Suffers Its Own Massive Art Theft

Days before a jewelry heist at the Louvre captured national attention, a longstanding Bay Area museum experienced a major theft of its own.

On Oct. 15, burglars stole more than 1,000 items from the Oakland Museum of California, including “Native American baskets, jewelry, laptops, and other historic artifacts,” Oakland’s police department said in a press release this week.

While the items taken in Oakland may not shine as brightly as the French crown jewels stolen from the iconic Paris gallery, Oakland Museum Director and CEO Lori Fogarty said the political pins, military memorabilia, Native baskets and scrimshaw artifacts now missing from the museum’s vast collection also have a priceless history.

“Our mission is to tell the broad story of California in all of its diversity, especially highlighting the story of everyday people, everyday life,” she told KQED. “We think of ourselves as stewards, not as owners, of that kind of cultural heritage.

“It feels like an attack on our community and on our cultural heritage, and for our staff who devote their full careers to caring for and preserving our collections, it’s truly heartbreaking,” she continued.

The theft occurred overnight on Oct. 15 at the museum’s off-site storage facility in Oakland, according to Oakland Police. Fogarty said that when museum staff arrived the following morning, it was evident there had been a break-in at the warehouse, where hundreds of thousands of its collection items are held when not on display.

“They saw right away that there had been an intrusion … and that a significant number of items were stolen,” Fogarty said.

In the weeks since, museum staff have been taking inventory to identify what’s missing and working with insurance brokers and the city of Oakland, which owns the collection, to determine the monetary value of the pieces.

The most valuable, and most likely to turn up at a pawn shop or flea market, are several baskets made by a Northern California Native tribe, a collection of metal and stone jewelry pieces from a California artist and a number of scrimshaw artifacts, according to Fogarty.

“We share a sense of responsibility for the public, but also for the Indigenous people of California for stewarding those collections,” Fogarty told KQED.

“For me and for a number of our collection staff, it’s the loss of the Native baskets that really hits home the hardest,” she continued, noting that much of the museum’s basket collection dates back to the early 1900s.

Oakland’s museum boasts the largest collection of California art history and natural science anywhere, including more than two million artworks, artifacts and specimens collected over the last 115 years, Fogarty said.

Its current site next to Lake Merritt opened in 1969, but was born from three predecessor institutions, including the Oakland History Museum, which was founded in 1910.

The Oakland Museum experienced a series of break-ins in 2012 and 2013, when thieves stole gold nuggets and other Gold Rush-era artifacts from its main site. An Oakland man was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 for thieving the most high-profile of those goods: a jewelry box made of California gold and adorned with gold-veined quartz, valued at up to $800,000. The box was ultimately returned.

“We are very much hoping that we will have a similar outcome here,” Fogarty said.

She said the museum took additional security precautions immediately following the break-in, and is working with OPD and the city to identify ways to bolster protections in the future.

OPD and the FBI’s Art Crime Team are co-leading an ongoing investigation into the incident, and have asked people to notify them if they see any items that resemble the stolen goods at local pawn shops, antique stores or flea markets.

KQED’s Billy Cruz contributed to this report.