May 5, 2023

Isabella Stewart Gardner: The Heist

 This week's Musings from Main is the third in a trilogy focusing on Isabella Stewart Gardner, the person, the museum and the heist.

The Friends are working on a "field trip" to Boston to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. If you are interested please fill out this form with your preferences, and we will contact you when the details are finalized, before tickets are available to the general public.

Isabella Stewart Gardner
The Museum Heist

During the early hours of March 18, 1990, in the predawn dark after St. Patrick’s Day, a vehicle pulled up near the side entrance of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Two men in police uniforms, pushed the Museum buzzer, stated they were responding to a disturbance, and requested to be let in.

There were two guards, Rick Abath and Randy Hestand, on duty that night. Abath was at the watch desk, broke protocol, and allowed them through the employee entrance. At the fake officers’ request, Abath radioed Hestand to return from his rounds. Both security men were subsequently handcuffed, their eyes and mouths wrapped with duct tape, and tied up in the basement.

After tying up the guards, the thieves methodically made their way through the darkened galleries of the museum. They spent most of their time in the Dutch Room where they took the largest number (6) and most valuable of the paintings.

They stole Rembrandt’s only seascape,“The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,’’ and Vermeer’s “The Concert,’’ a rare painting as Vermeer only made 36 paintings during his entire life. At the time "The Concert" was valued at $100 million, to this day it is speculated to be the most valuable unrecovered painting in the world.

Curiously the thieves did not take Titian’s “The Rape of Europa,’’ which was perhaps the museum’s most valuable piece.

In all, thirteen pieces of art were stolen. The thieves took their time as the museum's motion detectors recorded their movements throughout the building. In addition to Vermeer’s The Concert, and Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, they took A Lady and Gentleman in Black, and a small self-portrait by  Rembrandt, Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk, and an ancient Chinese bronze Gu from the Dutch room; five Degas drawings and a bronze eagle finial from the Short Gallery; and Manet's Chez Tortoni from the Blue Room.

The thieves spent 81 minutes inside the museum, departing at 2:45 AM, after making two separate trips to their car with the artwork. The guards remained handcuffed until police arrived at 8:15 AM. 

Over thirty years have passed since the $200 million (now over $500 million) haul, considered the single largest property theft in the world, and the return of the Gardner’s stolen art works remains a top priority.  Both the FBI and museum itself still have rewards offered for information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork.

“In typical art theft scenarios, we know that stolen art doesn’t travel far. But then, nothing about the Gardner heist is typical, which is why I will continue to investigate every single lead.”

-Anthony Amore, .

The Museum is offering a $10 million dollar reward for information leading directly to the safe return of the stolen works. A separate reward of $100,000 is being offered for the return of the Napoleonic eagle finial. Anyone with information about the stolen artworks should contact Director of Security Anthony Amore at 617 278 5114 or reward@gardnermuseum.org. Confidentiality is assured.

 Listen to Anthony Amore, the Museum’s Chief of Security, and Chief Investigator as he walks you through the museum heist.

Sources used for this Musing are listed below.

•  Kurkjian, Stephen, DNA clues hunted in ’90 art theft FBI hopes technology can yield lead in Gardner Museum case, The Boston Globe, March 4, 2010, retrieved May 5, 2023.
• Evemy, Benjamin Blake, Great Art Heists of History: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft, Part I: The Crime, Mutual Art, Nov 05, 2021, retrieved May 5, 2023.
• Horan, Kelly, Globe Correspondent, How the Gardner Museum’s security head befriended ‘the greatest art thief that ever lived’ Updated March 14, 2020 retrieved May 5, 2023.
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website, accessed May 5, 2023.
• Goldberg,Sandy, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Theft Audio Walk, Isabella Stewart Gardner website, March 2020,  retrieved May 5, 2023.
  

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