The Hiroshige Heist

Write about an art thief who is

struggling to commit the perfect

heist. #242, Fine Art.

The Hiroshige Heist

Denise A. Nisbet

Creeping around the Royal Academy of Arts like the Pink Panther …dum dadum dadumdadumdadum …do you know what we did? We stayed and hid when the gallery closed and now we had the run of the whole place, even if it was pitch dark. We were after Hiroshige. Who? Hiroshige. We were in love with the Japanese woodcut artist; you know the bloke who did The Wave, and Sudden Shower over Ohashi Bridge. You don’t know about those? Well, look them up. Pretty clever I reckon to create such movement in a piece of art using woodcut. Not just that, but colour plates with many colours. The images are so immediate. That wave is about to break over you; and you can see the fellows on the bridge will make it home, so glad to be out of that rain shower. ‘Hehe’ they’ll say as they get a dry kimono on and sit down on the tatami to be served a nice hot cup of tea.

We’ve decided we’d better not pinch either of those two, they are so famous, so well known, and someone visiting us will be sure to dob us in. But what would we snitch? We had a hundred odd to choose from. Now Carolyn is a cat lover so of course she wanted one of his famous cat paintings, like the one of the white cat peering out at Fuji. But I said, ‘Anything with Fuji is a dead giveaway’. So she got the huffs and stomped off, not a good idea in a blacked-out art gallery. A bit later I heard a sad little cry and found her in the soft light of her iPhone.

I really, really, really liked the bridge scene and was looking for another like the famous Sudden Shower one. As we were peering around the exhibit, we heard a sudden noise.

‘Quick’ I said, ‘turn off your light’, so we stood there in the dark, knees shaking, holding hands and scared as anything. A security bloke walked by, shone his light through the door and flashed it around the room, mercifully missing us by a whisker. We froze, didn’t move for ages, scared to death by the near miss. We began to worry. 

‘I think we shouldn’t be doing this,’ I said through chattering teeth. 

‘Of course we shouldn’t, you drip,’ said Carolyn, ‘but we’re here now and I’m not going without my painting.’ 

‘But it’s a terrible thing to do,’ I said.

‘Stop whinging and stick to the plan.’ 

‘ But we haven’t even decided which one to take.’ I said weakly. Just then we heard the security bloke coming back. 

            ‘Quick,’ said Carolyn, ‘in here,’ and dragged me through a doorway. Our hearts were beating so hard we were sure the security bloke would hear them. But as everything became quiet, the relief was so great all I wanted to do was to run.

Hiroshige was a fireman’s son, not even a member of the upper echelons of his society in Edo (the old name for Tokyo). But his woodcuts brought everyday life alive to his viewers and he became wealthy and famous. At the same time we, in the west, were entranced by what we saw. The ideal of Japanese female beauty was so strange to us; an oval face painted white, slanted but half-closed eyes, tiny pursed lips painted bright red. Seductiveness was the kimono slipping back to reveal the nape of the neck. The landscapes were stylised and easier on western eyes, though some look unrealistic. Generally, boats and flowers were lovely, but bland. But most have great charm, that undefinable, almost mystic appeal, that draws even two very ordinary people to want to have something that they can possess and hold as a talisman of eastern beauty and mystique.

After a while, and with trembling fingers, we switched on the phone torch. It was pitch dark inside the cupboard we were in, but we didn’t want to give ourselves away if the phone light shone out under the door. When we did switch it on we just gasped, absolutely amazed. What we saw were stacks of Hiroshige prints. A treasure chest of possible property…We decided we would be able to snitch some, perhaps without any repercussions. Almost without discernment we sorted and divided the pile into two, keep and don’t keep. Obviously these prints were not selected to be part of the great exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. They were just the right things for us, two ordinary people charmed by Hiroshige, longing to ownsome of his works, but constrained by cost.

Could we call this a heist? Yes? No? We stole, without the slightest feeling of conscience-stricken guilt, six pieces of art (including, of course, one of those wretched cat pictures that Carolyn hankered after and a rain scene for me). We then sat the night out in our safe closet, snoozing off and on, but with such a mix of feelings: triumphant, frightened, thirsty and needing to pee. We hadn’t thought of that when we planned our Hiroshige heist.

We were exhilarated by our success, still pumping adrenaline, and frightened knowing we still had to walk out with our ill-gotten gains in the morning. Now there’s another thing we didn’t really plan. We’d thought through the actual thieving of a painting even down to cutting off an alarm if necessary. We’d been lucky with those unused ones in that cupboard. But we hadn’t decided how to get the painting out! I think we thought we’d just trot out with one of them under a jumper. But they were bigger than you’d think, stiff and crackly, and that’s without a frame. And it was summer and we weren’t wearing jumpers. Hang on, what is this? Some sort of amateur art-thieving? Well, yes as it happens. Exactly. Some sort of amateur art-thieving.

Morning arrived and we were no nearer a solution for how to get our paintings out. Carolyn peeked out of the cupboard. Even though it was early there were a few people around. Must have slept longer than we thought. We took it in turns to check the gallery for escape possibilities. It must have been quite late when ‘Quick’ said Carolyn. ‘Come ON.’ I followed blindly. She grabbed a pram and moved it to the door of our cupboard. I looked around fearfully, my hands full of our stolen prize. There was a mother, soothing her baby back to sleep. 

‘COME ON’ from Carolyn. She grabbed the paintings from me, shoved them in the basket under the pram, and covered them with a baby blanket. 

‘Ooooo, what if… ‘ I started.

‘Quiet,’ she said. ‘Just keep watching,’ Mama looked around, looking for her baby’s pram. ‘How did it get there?’ I can see her thinking. But she lay the baby down, turned and headed off with us following.

‘What now?’ I said. 

‘Shhhhh’ said Carolyn, ‘just follow her’. 

Well that woman certainly loved her art! With her baby asleep, she peered at each work of art exhaustively. She must like Hiroshige too, I thought. Then she started making notes. I sat down, exhausted from the adrenaline rush, nearly falling asleep. She really really really must like Hiroshige! Bless the baby. She let out a great howl that had nothing to do with me accidentally knocking her pram. Nothing at all. And Mama set off at quite a pace with two bedraggled art-thieves trying to slink, unseen, behind her. Out the doors she went. I breathed what felt like the first decent breath of air I’d taken in hours.

Mama crossed the road and went towards the park. Was she going in? YES. Hurray! She pushed the pram in, settled on a bench under a tree, and began to take care of the baby.        ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ we muttered. Bless that baby. She let out a loud howl (and this time I didn’t jolt the pram), and Mama began to walk her up and down, turning her back to us. I dived into that pram, grabbed our paintings, and Carolyn and I walked as slowly as we could out of that park, and then, on a wave of euphoria we laughed and laughed and laughed. We’d done it, two silly young women who had a taste for fine art. We’d pulled off an art heist!

I really hesitate to tell you the rest of the story. Months after we had framed our prints and shown them on the walls of our home, the loss was reported in the press. Our friends made jokes about our prints and we laughed too. Hahaha, yes, we’d stolen them from the Royal Academy of Arts, hahaha. But we HAD. And that success led us on to do many more heists …