The Most Costly Art Heist in World History, St. Paddy's Day and a Last Will & Testament!

This past St. Paddy's day marked the 35th anniversary of the most costly theft of personal property, valued in excess of $500M, in world history.  Few would associate the most costly theft with St. Paddy's Day and a Last Will and Testament. But these disparate concepts crossed paths when an art heist  occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston's Back Bay on March 17, 1990. 

Prior to her death in 1924, the museum's benefactor, Ms. Isabella Stewart Gardner, had collected more than 7500 pieces of priceless artwork. Throughout her life, Ms. Gardner traveled the World collecting artwork from ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Middle East, and 19th Century America and France.  Ms. Gardner's collection included all types of art, ranging from paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles, silver, ceramics, and rare books.  

All of this artwork  was displayed in Ms. Gardner's Mansion in Boston's Back Bay, which, along with its contents, was established as a Museum in 1903.  Upon her death in 1924, Ms. Gardner's will placed a material condition upon the museum - the curators must maintain the art collection exactly as she had arranged it, nothing could ever be moved or changed by the curators.  If anything was changed by the curators, the museum was to be dissolved, the art sold at auction, and the proceeds donated to Harvard University.  Throughout the 66 years between Ms. Gardner's death in 1924 and St Paddy's Day, 1990, nothing was changed by the curators with respect to the location and arrangement of the art collection in Ms. Gartner's former mansion. Indeed, aside from the stolen artwork, nothing has changed in the 35 years since March 17, 1990.

Obviously, the heist of 13 pieces of priceless artwork  on St. Paddy's Day 1990, achieved what the curators could not!  At approximately 2am, two art thieves disguised as uniformed Boston policemen, coaxed their way into a side door of the museum.  The art thieves represented to the unarmed security guards on duty they had been directed to investigate a silent alarm at the museum.  Once inside, the art thieves restrained the security guards and spent the next hour roaming the galleries collecting what appeared to be a predefined shopping list of artwork. 

Amongst the 13 pieces of art were multiple paintings, including three Rembrandts, one Vermeer, five Degas, one Flinck, one Manet, a 12th century Chinese vase and the golden finial from Napoleon's battle flag.  The thieves cut the paintings out of their frames, rolled up the canvases, and left the empty frames hanging on the walls. Those empty frames remain hanging on the walls to this day, 35 years after the the paintings were stolen, as required by  Ms. Gardner's will.  Ironically, the thieves did not take any of the most valuable artwork on display in the museum, including art from Michelangelo and Botticelli.

At the time of the theft, the 13 pieces of artwork  were considered priceless, valued in excess of $500 million dollars. This makes the heist the greatest single theft of personal property, whether artwork or other property, in the history of the world.  While there were security cameras, the thieves also stole the video tapes that recorded the thieves movements the entire night of the theft.  The security guards helped create police sketches of the thieves, describing them both as white males, in their mid forty's and of Italian descent.  None of the artwork has ever been recovered, and unfortunately none of the artwork was insured, so the theft imposed huge losses upon the museum and its patrons. 

There have been multiple rumors as to who stole the artwork, as well as to where the artwork was supposedly located.  The FBI, CIA, State Police, and many other federal and state agencies participated in the investigation.  Most all investigators believe the thieves entered the museum with a specific shopping list.  Some claim the heist was orchestrated by the Mafia, others say it was a wealthy art collector seeking specific pieces, and others say it was just petty art thieves, who had no idea of the value of what was taken.  Sightings of the stolen art  have been reported in warehouses in Boston, homes in Providence Rhode Island, hideouts in Philadelphia, museums in Russia, and royal palaces in Qatar.  The museum is offering a $10M reward for recovery of all 13 art pieces, but authorities are no closer to recovering the art now, than they were the day after the art was stolen 35 years ago.

Unless and until the artwork is recovered, multiple empty frames hang on the walls of the Isabella Gardner Museum, causing most visitors to question why?  [See picture in header]. But the answer is simple.  Ms. Gartner's last will and testament prohibits the curators from changing anything, including empty frames leftover from the theft of artwork back on a fateful St Patrick's Day back in 1990.