It was a terrifying interruption to an otherwise peaceful day at the René Magritte Museum (located in the artist’s former home) on September 29, 2009. As three employees and two tourists enjoyed a quiet morning in the small former home of the artist, the doorbell of the by-appointment-only museum rang just after 10:00. Two men entered, held a gun at the museum attendant who had greeted them, forced everyone to the ground in the museum’s courtyard, and then left with one painting in their possession – the 1948 oil portrait Olympia. The painting, atypical of Magritte’s other surrealist object and landscape portraits, shows his wife, Olympia, lying nude on a beach with a conch shell on her stomach.

The painting is valued at over $1 million, but most experts guess that the thieves did not intend to sell the masterpiece. The painted portrait is far too famous to sell, even on the black market, and the men took only the one piece, despite having time and access to numerous other works. The details of the crime suggest that an illegal collector hired these two men to steal this specific original oil art for his or her own underground collection.

So what’s so tragic about this particular theft? There are of course the emotional elements – when Magritte painted this affectionate, honest canvas portrait, the oil portrait artist and his wife were living in the house that would eventually become the museum. The opportunity to experience such an intimate piece of art – a family painting – in such a personal location is truly unique, and now that opportunity is gone.

But even more significant in this case is the role that this oil portrait painting played at the museum. A museum as small as the Magritte house is often forced to rely on a few signature pieces to attract visitors; Olympia was one of those pieces. Especially after a large Magritte museum opened in Brussels in the summer of 2009, the house needed pieces like Olympia to continue attracting visitors to its doors. Fortunately the museum can still rely on its unique historical role as the artist’s home and its continuing status as a central hub of Magritte scholarship to support it. But for other similar small museums, where security also often tends to be lower, a theft like that of the Olympia can spell disaster. The René Magritte Museum has more to fall back on, but not every museum is so fortunate. In this way, the Olympia theft reminds us of what could happen. Sometimes it’s not just an original oil portrait at risk; it’s an entire gallery.