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I t has been almost 25 years since 13 artworks worth some $500
million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
the largest art heist in U.S. history. The statute of
limitations for prosecuting the thieves has long expired but
officials at the private museum and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation have not given up hope of recovering the missing
works, which include including Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of
Galilee," Vermeer's "The Concert" and Manet's "Chez Tortoni."
The Gardner's remaining collection is sizable, boasting some
2,500 pieces that range from a Roman mosaic of Medusa to ancient
Chinese bronzes, reflecting the eclectic tastes of the
turn-of-the-century collector from whom it takes its name.
More unusual are the four empty frames that hang in the
galleries. They are a quirk of Gardner's will that turned the
building she called home in her final years over to the public
as a museum after her 1924 death, on the condition that the
collection not be changed.
Anthony Amore, the museum's chief of security, described the
empty frames as "placeholders, signs of hope" that the missing
art would one day be recovered.
"The investigation is very active and very methodical," said
Amore, a former Department of Homeland Security official who has
spent much of the past decade trying to track down the missing
art. "We need those works."
The mystery dates to the rainy night of March 18, 1990, when two
men dressed as police officers arrived at the museum's front
door and security guards let them in. The pair allegedly
overpowered the guards, who were found duct-taped to chairs in
the museum's basement the next morning.
There have been glimmers of hope of solving the crime. In March
2013, FBI officials said they had identified the thieves and
asked anyone who seen the missing work, which includes etchings
and other historic objects, to come forward.
But a month later Boston law enforcement's attention was
refocused on the fatal bombing attack at the Boston Marathon and
no artwork has been recovered.
The investigation has taken FBI agents as far afield as Ireland
and Japan, but in recent years has been focused on the
northeastern and central United States, said Geoff Kelly, the
special agent in charge of the case.
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"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," Kelly said. "We've
been able to narrow the haystack."
ECCENTRIC PATRON
Gardner's life was as distinctive as her art collection. A native of
New York who moved north after marrying businessman Jack Gardner in
1860, she did not comport to the dour standards of the wealthy in
19th century Boston.
Gardner, who had been educated in Paris, served donuts at flamboyant
parties and competed with male art collectors for prize pieces.
After her first and only child died at the age of 2, the Gardners
toured Europe extensively, adding to their collection of art and
antiques.
The couple commissioned the building that now houses the museum
after their art holdings outgrew their home. The museum opened in
1903, five years after Jack's death.
Her orders that the museum remain unchanged means that, a
quarter-century on, the theft is a raw experience for first-time
visitors.
"Any other museum would simply paper over the loss and take down the
frames and put something else up," said Andrew McClellan, a Tufts
University professor specializing in museum history. "At the
Gardner, it's a haunting presence that will only ever be healed by
the return of the paintings."
Kelly would say little about who the FBI suspects stole the art,
other than allude to the Mafia. But he contends the thieves likely
were not art connoisseurs, given that they left behind some its most
prized pieces, including Titian's "The Rape of Europa."
"These thieves were not sophisticated criminals, as evidenced by the
fact that two of the paintings were cut out of their frames," Kelly
said. "The significant value of the stolen artwork seems to have
elevated the status of the thieves to master criminals but that's a
specious assumption."
(Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Trott)
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