Crimes Against the Canvas Presents Ghent Altarpiece Part IV
THE THEFT THAT BECAME A MYSTERY
By 1934, the Ghent Altarpiece had endured almost everything history could throw at it. It had survived religious upheaval, been carried away by Napoleon's forces, been divided between countries, and finally reunited after the First World War. For the first time in generations, the masterpiece was once again substantially complete and back in Ghent.
Then, in the spring of 1934, someone stole two of its panels.
The theft took place at St. Bavo's Cathedral during the night of April 10. When the cathedral staff discovered what had happened, two panels were missing: Saint John the Baptist and The Just Judges. Unlike the enormous upheavals that had carried parts of the altarpiece across Europe in earlier centuries, this crime was remarkably small in scale. There was no invading army, no revolutionary government, and no grand military operation.
Someone had simply taken two pieces of one of Europe's most famous works of art.
The thieves had chosen their targets carefully. The panels were valuable, portable, and famous enough that their disappearance could not be ignored. Yet whoever took them apparently had no intention of immediately destroying or selling them through an ordinary art market. Instead, the crime soon took a stranger turn.
A ransom demand arrived.
The thieves offered to return the panels in exchange for money. At first, the situation appeared to be a straightforward case of art theft for profit. Pay the ransom, recover the paintings, and the case would be over.
But the story became complicated almost immediately.
The thieves returned Saint John the Baptist. The Just Judges, however, remained missing.
That distinction would eventually become one of the great mysteries of art history.
Why return one panel but keep the other?
Was the missing panel being held for a larger ransom? Had something gone wrong? Was the thief working alone, or were other people involved? And perhaps most importantly, did the people demanding money actually know where the Just Judges was?
Investigators were left with very little to work with. There was a missing masterpiece, a series of ransom communications, and an unknown person (or group of people) who appeared to know enough about the altarpiece to identify exactly what they had taken.
Then came a remarkable development.
A local stockbroker and prominent Catholic named Arsène Goedertier became connected to the case. Shortly before his death in November 1934, Goedertier reportedly confessed to having information about the stolen panel. According to accounts of his final moments, he indicated that he alone knew where the Just Judges was hidden, but that he would not reveal its location before he died.
That statement would send the investigation in an entirely new direction.
If Goedertier really was responsible for the theft, then the case had suddenly acquired a potential culprit. But a confession without the missing painting was hardly a solution.
After his death, investigators searched for evidence that might reveal what had happened to the panel. They found clues and documents that appeared to connect Goedertier to the ransom scheme, including drafts of letters demanding payment. But the one thing they needed most was nowhere to be found.
The painting was still missing.
And this is where the story becomes particularly frustrating.
There have been countless attempts to determine what happened to the Just Judges. Investigators and researchers have followed leads, examined documents, questioned theories, and searched for hidden locations. Over the decades, proposed hiding places have included churches, private residences, crypts, and other locations. Yet none has produced the original panel.
Even the identity of the thief is not as settled as the popular version of the story sometimes suggests.
Goedertier is widely regarded as the central suspect, but the evidence does not provide the kind of definitive conclusion that would close a modern criminal investigation. We know that he was connected to the ransom correspondence and that he claimed to possess knowledge about the panel. We do not know with certainty whether he actually stole it, whether he acted alone, or whether someone else was involved.
And then there is the most haunting possibility of all.
Perhaps the Just Judges no longer exists.
The panel could have been hidden and forgotten. It could have been deliberately destroyed. It could have been damaged beyond recognition. It could even, theoretically, still be sitting somewhere in private hands, its significance known only to someone who has never revealed it.
Nearly a century later, no explanation has been proven.
The original Just Judges has never returned to St. Bavo's Cathedral.
When visitors look at the Ghent Altarpiece today, they can see the place where the missing panel belongs. What they see there, however, is not the original. The space is occupied by a modern copy created after the theft.
It is an unusual sight: one of the world's most famous masterpieces contains, quite literally, a reminder of an unsolved crime.
And for all the wars, political struggles, and acts of cultural plunder the Ghent Altarpiece had survived, it was this comparatively quiet theft that left behind the one wound that history has never managed to heal.
The case of the Just Judges was still open.
And the next people who came looking for the Ghent Altarpiece would not be interested in solving the mystery.
They wanted the entire masterpiece.
They were the Nazis.
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