The Gardner Museum Heist
So there’s disguises, organized crime, and $1 billion in stolen artwork, what more could you want from what’s commonly called the greatest art heist in history.
First a little background. Isabella Stewart Gardner was a badass. She was stylish, had amazing taste and a lot of money. As a result, she was able to travel the world with her husband collecting paintings and other works of art everywhere she went, honestly goals. Being a philanthropist and a lover of art she was like yes ok great I bought too much art for our house so we’ll just have to build and operate a museum. And when you have that kind of money you can do whatever you want.
The museum was opened in 1903 with a big party (doughnuts were on the menu) and the museum ran like normal until March 18, 1990.
In the early hours of that morning, the security guards were minding their own business expecting it to be another quiet overnight shift when there was a knock at the door. It was two policemen and because everyone loves a man in uniform they let them come in, they had no reason to think it wasn’t the police. Pretty soon they clued into the fact that they were actually getting robbed, maybe getting tied up gave it away. In any case, 13 works were stolen from the museum that night valued at $1 billion in today’s currency. But why did they take the works they did? Who is behind this? Where are the paintings now?
These are the things that confuse me, and even people way smarter and more educated than me, about this case. So let’s discuss:
1. Why did they take the works that they did?
Some are clear and make sense like Vermeer’s The Concert, he only has like a few paintings that even exist, he’s super famous, this painting was extremely valuable. Same with Rambrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee also valuable and it happens to be his only known seascape. Case closed on those two. Some pieces by Degas, Manet, Rembrandt and Flinck were also nabbed, those I kind of get because the artists are also well known but the thieves missed entire FLOORS of the museum where more insanely valuable work by Botticelli, Raphael, and Michaelangelo was hanging. For example, Titian’s The Rape of Europa was on the third floor where they didn’t even go and was one of the most valuable paintings in the city. What I don’t get is that two relatively valueless things were taken along with these paintings and drawings; an ancient Chinese gu (urn used for serving wine) and a Napoleonic finial (little carved eagle from the top of a flag pole). Why would you bother with these items as a thief??
This all leads to my second question
2. Who is behind this?
This one is a real doozy because there are so many possibilities and very little physical evidence but I’ve done the reading so you don’t have to. In my opinion, this is the most compelling scenario from the information that has been released publicly. Right off the bat, I’ll say that I agree with the FBI and that I think that organized crime was likely behind the robbery*.
Bobby Donati is the main player here, he was associated with the Merlino gang. There is SO MUCH circumstantial evidence surrounding him in his case. He visited noted art thief Myles J. Connor Jr., as well as his ‘boss’ in jail and told them both that he was planning to steal the artwork in order to negotiate and free them, this is something that Connor had done in the past. Shortly before the crime, Donati was seen at a bar holding a package containing police uniforms (sound familiar?). Then, following the crime, an antiques dealer William P. Youngworth, who had sold stolen pieces for Donati in the past, led a journalist for the Boston Herald to a warehouse where he showed him what he claimed was The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. This is the only possible sighting of any of the stolen work! He even gave the journalist some paint chips for testing, the test came back inconclusive (chips were from the right time period but couldn’t be proven they’re from that exact painting). Ok, back to Donati, he also had a weird interest in the Napoleonic finial and the thieves took a really long time to get it out from its case when they could have taken the drawing opposite by Michaelangelo which is considerably more valuable. When Donati got a little freaked out by the heat that was on him, I think he gave the paintings to his friend Robert Guarente.
Guarente was also associated with the Merlino gang. When he died in 2004 his widow told the FBI that he had previously owned some of the paintings (!!!!). She said that when he got sick he gave them to another known gangster, Robert Gentile, for safekeeping (Gentile obviously denies this). What’s interesting though is when Gentile’s house was searched they found a storage space under a fake floor in his shed, empty duh, that apparently flooded a few years before which made Gentile extremely upset. Wouldn’t you be if your $1 billion art collection got all wet? Also found was a copy of the Boston Herald newspaper from 1990 with reports of the theft as well as a piece of paper listing each piece and the black market prices for them!!! This is the best part for me, why would you have this paper if you don’t have the paintings, have never seen the paintings, and never intended to sell them on the black market?
3. Where are the paintings now?
Honestly, I have zero clue, if I knew I would be a millionaire. They could really be anywhere which is pretty sad. Donati said that he had buried them, they could still be in the USA or overseas if they still exist at all.
If you want to do your own sleuthing, the reward for information leading to the recovery of these works is $10 million. Perfect little quarantine project, solve a 30-year-old mystery, and make some cash, easy!
*One funny thing I learned while researching, they were looking into one crime boss for the robbery and he was like “no I didn’t do it but wtf that is my territory so I am owed some money from this” so he actually sent his people out to try and figure out who did it!