(Credits: Far Out / FBI / Beyond My Ken /
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)
There are so many unexplainable mysteries that human beings have still been able to resolve, from pop culture, to history, to real life. However, there are some mysteries where even the collective power of human minds, the most powerful beings on the planet, have reached a dead end.
This is the case with the ‘Gardner museum theft’, today known as the world’s largest art heist ever completed and gone unsolved. It has now been 35 years since the heist was made in the 1990s, but still, no one has been arrested or charged.
The value of the artworks stolen is truly staggering; in the early hours of March 18th, 1990, two men disguised as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and handcuffed the two security guards on duty. Over an hour later, they left with 13 artworks comprising paintings from some of the most notorious old masters.
One might be wondering how on earth it could be possible that in the hour the thieves were in the museum, no one came to stop them. Well, this frustrating question has no answer. It leads many to speculate if the security guards were actually on it.
A quick Google search today will prove to you the sheer desperation of the museum, indeed that of the entire city of Boston, as the website reads that the investigation is still ongoing and a $10million award is up for grabs if anyone is able to bring forward any information related to the recovery of the stolen works.
“The museum, the FBI, and the US Attorney’s office are still seeking viable leads that could result in safe return of the art,” it reads. With all the security and technology of today, how could something like this go unnoticed?
The stolen objects most notably include one of only 37 known paintings by Johannes Vermeer, The Concert, and Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt van Rijn’s only seascape. Because of their rarity and prestige, these works alone are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
At the time of the heist, it was estimated that the total value of the works was $500m, but since then, it has been confirmed that the value has gone up, making it the largest single instance of property theft by value. In 2019, Sotheby’s senior vice president Otto Naumann said the stolen horde would be worth at least $1bn, with Vermeer’s The Concert worth nearly $500m alone.
Even the museum’s security director, Anthony Amore, said in 2023 on an FBI podcast that the value is definitely higher than the museum’s most valuable work, which was left behind and still hangs today: Titian’s Rape of Europa.
For a little bit of context, the museum was built by the millionaire bohemian Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, who built a world-class collection of old masters paintings. Born to a wealthy New York family, she was lucky to receive a very cosmopolitan education, acquiring friends like the novelist Henry James, the historian Henry Adams and the painter John Singer Sargent.
Unlike many of her counterparts, she was one of the first American collectors to aggressively acquire works by European masters. She stated that “the greatest need in our country was art. We were a very young country and had few opportunities to see beautiful things … So, I am determined to make it my life’s work if I could”.
When she was building the museum, Gardner spent $100,000 on Titian’s painting, giving you an idea of how the art market has drastically changed. However, the museum has not given up, and the memory of the stolen paintings is still present. To comply with Gardner’s will, the museum hangs the stolen painting’s frames that were left behind in the hope the artwork will be returned.
Recently, to mark the 35th anniversary of the theft, the museum has unveiled a sound installation in the Dutch Room, from which six of the 13 stolen works were taken. Sound artist Skooby Laposky has sonically recreated Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and visitors observing the frame will hear waves and the sounds of birds native to the Sea of Galilee, aurally bringing to life what is no longer there in a hopeful attempt to one day be able to replace the sounds with the stolen painting.
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