TED - The strange history of the world's most stolen painting

Discover Jan van Eyck’s masterpiece “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” (aka the Ghent Altarpiece), and explore how it became the world’s most stolen artwork in this 5 minute, educational video created for TED Education.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding the Ghent Altarpiece and its long history that spans throughout six decades, during which the artwork has been burned, forged, and raided in three different wars.

During the creative process of the animation we decided to develop a visual style that almost resembles a detective story.

With a clever use of motion graphics, we created an animated collage that brings together historical facts, photographs, modern illustrations, notes, maps, names of people, dates and even anecdotes that surround the story.

The visual style also brings together the old and the new, creating a distinct contrast between the artwork of the Altarpiece itself and our contemporary motion graphics. This makes the artwork stand out, and the aesthetics more interesting and playful to match the tone of the storytelling in the script that TED and the educator Noah Charney have provided us with. The result… a fun and engaging educational video for children of all ages.