Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft incident

In the early hours of March 18, 1990, guards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call. Once inside, the men tied up the guards and, over the next hour, stole thirteen works of art valued at $500 million – the largest-value theft of private property in history. Despite efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and multiple probes around the world, no arrests have been made and no works have been recovered. The museum initiallly offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to their recovery, but in 2017 this was doubled temporarily to $10 million with an expiration date set to the end of the year.

The stolen works were originally purchased by art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) and intended to be left on permanent display at the museum with the rest of her collection. Since the collection and its layout are permanent, empty frames remain hanging both in homage to the missing works and as placeholders for when they are returned. Experts are puzzled by the choice of paintings that were stolen, especially since more valuable artwork was untouched. Among the stolen works was The Concert, one of only 34 known works by Vermeer and thought to be the most valuable unrecovered painting at over $200 million. Also missing is The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt's only known seascape. Other works by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, and Flinck were also stolen.

According to the FBI, the stolen artwork was moved through the region and offered for sale in Philadelphia during the early 2000s. They believe the thieves were members of a criminal organization based in the mid-Atlantic and New England. They also claim to have identified two suspects, although they have not been publicly identified and are now deceased. Boston gangster Bobby Donati, murdered in 1991 as a result of ongoing gang wars, has been cited as a possible collaborator in the heist. Significant evidence suggests that Hartford, Connecticut gangster Robert Gentile knows the location of the works, although he denies involvement.

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