{"id":48693,"date":"2019-03-18T11:01:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T15:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=48693"},"modified":"2025-03-18T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T15:31:22","slug":"unsolved-mystery-stunning-theft-from-boston-art-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/unsolved-mystery-stunning-theft-from-boston-art-museum.html","title":{"rendered":"Unsolved Mystery: Stunning Theft from Boston Art Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

It remains a mystery, one that perhaps may never be solved. This much is clear: early in the morning of 18 March 1990, two thieves dressed as Boston police officers tricked the pair of security guards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum into granting them entry. Once inside, they bound and gagged the guards and stole 13 immensely valuable works of art, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The thieves have never been caught, and the stolen treasures have never turned up \u2013 29 years and counting\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: the original building of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, called \u201cFenway Court\u201d when Gardner was alive. It is one of the two buildings of the museum. Located on the Fenway in Boston, Massachusetts, it was built in 1902 and was designed by Willard T. Sears. Credit: Beyond My Ken; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Isabella Stewart Gardner, the wealthy Bostonian who established the museum in 1903 to showcase her dazzling private art collection and carefully watched over it until her death in 1924, would surely be heartbroken at the loss of some of her most precious treasures. Among the paintings stolen was one by Vermeer (one of only 34 paintings by the Dutch master known to exist), and other masterpieces by such artists as Degas, Manet and Rembrandt.<\/p>\n

It is impossible to accurately gauge the value of the artworks, since none of them has been on the open market for over a century, but estimates have ranged as high as $500 million. Despite offers of complete confidentiality and a $10 million reward, no one has come forward to provide any information to the museum. As one of the following three newspaper articles speculates, it is quite likely the art works have disappeared into the underworld art market and may never be recovered.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 19 March 1990, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Thieves, aka Police, Loot Boston Art Museum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Associated Press<\/p>\n

BOSTON \u2013 Thieves disguised as policemen talked their way into a leading art museum yesterday and stole 11 paintings, including major works by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet and Vermeer, FBI and museum officials said.<\/p>\n

The value of the missing works, which also included an ancient Chinese beaker, was \u201cin the hundreds of millions of dollars,\u201d said Karen Haas, acting curator of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.<\/p>\n

The paintings\u2019 value cannot be accurately determined because they have not been on the market for nearly a century, she said. In any case, art experts said, such well-known works could not be sold on the open market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the biggest old master theft in this country, by far,\u201d said Constance Lowenthal, executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research in New York, which tracks stolen artworks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gardner Museum is a treasure house. Everything in it is exceedingly valuable and first rate and superb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Cavanagh, special FBI agent in Boston, called the theft \u201ca professional job\u2026 It was not discovered until\u2026 cleaning people showed up to do their rounds around eight this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 1 a.m. yesterday, the thieves apparently convinced museum guards they were police officers and tied them with tape before making their way to the museum\u2019s Dutch room, Cavanagh said. The guards were not hurt, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of those thefts where people actually spent some time researching and took specific things,\u201d Cavanagh said. The investigation would not be limited to the United States, he said.<\/p>\n

The works taken were: \u201cThe Concert\u201d by Jan Vermeer; \u201cA Lady and a Gentleman in Black,\u201d \u201cThe Storm on the Sea of Galilee,\u201d and a self-portrait by Rembrandt; \u201cLandscape with an Obelisk\u201d by Govaert Flinck, another 17th<\/sup>-century Dutchman; \u201cLa Sortie du Pesage,\u201d \u201cCortege aux Environs de Florence,\u201d \u201cThree Mounted Jockeys,\u201d \u201cProgram for an Artistic Soiree,\u201d and another, less complete work by the same name, by Edgar Degas; \u201cChez Tortoni\u201d by Edouard Manet; and a Chinese bronze beaker dating from the Shang Dynasty, 1,200-1,100 B.C.<\/p>\n

William Robinson, curator of drawings for Harvard University\u2019s Fogg Art Museum, called the objects stolen \u201cmajor works.\u201d Robinson said the Rembrandt self-portrait and \u201cThe Storm on the Sea of Galilee,\u201d the artist\u2019s only seascape, were especially important.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not overstating the case to say that these are priceless works,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cA loss of any of these works is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things do not belong on the market and cannot be sold for a decent price,\u201d Lowenthal said. \u201cPossibly the thieves are going to wake up tomorrow morning and have a completely different problem from the one they thought they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corey Cronin, a museum spokesman, said the works were part of the museum\u2019s permanent collection dating from the last century. Cronin said the museum had a \u201cstate of the art\u201d security system and employed two security guards.<\/p>\n

He said no apparent damage was done to the museum, a former mansion built at the turn of the century in the style of a 15th<\/sup> century Venetian palace.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Mobile Register (Mobile, Alabama), 20 March 1990, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Search Continues for Stolen Artwork<\/strong><\/p>\n

BOSTON (AP) \u2013 The FBI searched around the world Monday for a dozen priceless artworks stolen from the Gardner Museum. Authorities said it was the biggest theft of modern times \u2013 a $100 million-plus caper exceeded only by the looting of Germany\u2019s national bank at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

The museum, meanwhile, disclosed that the missing works were insured for damage as well as restoration and conservation, but that it had no theft insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cInsurance coverage for a collection as valuable as the Gardner\u2019s would be prohibitive,\u201d museum spokesman Corey Cronin said. \u201cThe (museum) board decided a number of years ago not to insure the collection since, even if an insurance policy paid off, the museum could not use the money to replace the items lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, New Jersey), 20 March 1990, page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Experts: Art Underworld Thrives<\/strong><\/p>\n

BOSTON (AP) \u2013 Occasionally, an art theft reads like the plot from an Ian Fleming thriller in which half-mad billionaires pay slick international thieves to steal famous paintings for their private pleasure.<\/p>\n

In reality, experts said yesterday, most art is stolen to earn a quick buck in an international black market that is second in size only to the drug trade.<\/p>\n

The priceless art stolen Sunday from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is too notorious to be sold anywhere, raising the specter that the pieces could be held hostage for ransom for a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars the art world says the paintings are worth.<\/p>\n

The true scale of the art underworld is difficult to gauge, but investigators say art thievery is increasing as prices for works on the legal market soar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of it going on,\u201d said Robert W. Holmes Jr., a Boston attorney specializing in fine art transactions. \u201cNinety percent of stolen art is never recovered. There\u2019s obviously a market there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rarely, one end of the market is held up by someone who decides to commission the theft of a painting that cannot be legitimately acquired.<\/p>\n

One such theft occurred in 1983, when thieves stole Italian Renaissance masterpieces, including Raphael\u2019s self-portrait, from the Hungarian national museum in Budapest.<\/p>\n

Investigators found that a sophisticated band of Italian art thieves, armed with cutting tools and high-tech alarm-busting devices, executed a perfect break-in and vanished with the works.<\/p>\n

An extensive dragnet eventually snared the thieves in their home country before they could get the paintings to Greece where, it was later found, an olive oil baron had paid a handsome sum for the sake of having the works hang in his home.<\/p>\n

Most of the black market in art is in lesser-known works usually ranging in value from $100,000 to $300,000. Priceless works such as the Vermeer taken from the Gardner Museum are simply too famous to be sold anywhere.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> An online collection of newspapers, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, is not only a great way to learn about the lives of your ancestors \u2013 the old newspaper articles also help you understand American history and the times your ancestors lived in, and the news they talked about and read in their local papers \u2013 as well as more recent events.<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article about the unsolved theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on 18 March 1990; the priceless paintings remain missing to this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12235],"tags":[6713,29793,23641,41271],"class_list":["post-48693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-american-history","tag-art-and-artists","tag-crime-and-criminals","tag-isabella-stewart-gardner-museum"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/illustration-0318-2019-featured-graphic-manet-painting.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102261,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48693\/revisions\/102261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}