21.   Museum personnel averted a theft earlier this year when they stopped a man who tried to steal a painting off a wall during the day.

22.   Police did not say when the painting was stolen or when it was recovered.

23.   The defendant claimed he did not intend to steal the painting, but had wanted to vandalize it.

24.   The paintings had been stolen from the Dos Patudos museum in Alpiarca, Portugal.

25.   The suspects, whose identities and nationalities were not released, are accused of stealing the painting and demanding a ransom for its return.

26.   They believe the painting was stolen from a Middle Eastern country.

27.   They knocked out a guard, tied him up and took his keys before stealing the paintings and escaping in a van.

28.   Thieves stole a painting by Gustav Klimt from a museum in this northern Italian city apparently by extracting it through a skylight, authorities said Sunday.

29.   According to recent Indonesian press reports, the paintings were stolen from the National Museum in Jakarta.

30.   Police believe the paintings were stolen during an armed robbery in Paris.