Stolen Rembrandts

If you like Boston Accents, 90s nostalgia, and true crime—This is a Robbery on Netflix is for you. Produced by Colin and Nick Barnicle, it’s a breezy four episodes with great characters, interviews, surprisingly high production value re-creations, and archive footage.

The Heist

The series is about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. When, in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thirteen of the museum’s works were stolen. Those 13 art pieces? They’re worth about $500 million. The crime remains unsolved and theories as to who was involved mostly circle around the Italian Mafia or the Irish Mob. Both of which were kind of in a state of flux at this time.

The Boston Mob

During this time, the New England Mafia (the Patriarca Family) had some… inner family squabbles, you might say. But instead of shouting and awkward moments on Thanksgiving, squabbles in this kind of family end with someone’s body stuffed in the trunk of a Caddilac and parked at Logan Airport.

The goings of the Irish Mob around this time is well known. You have Whitey Bulger, who ran the Southie faction of the Winter Hill Gang, and was an FBI informant. Yet still murdering people and turning South Boston into a cesspool in the 80s and 90s. If you’re interested, Black Mass is a great book on the subject. Terrible movie—get the book.

St. Paddy’s Day 1990

Speaking of Southie. If you haven’t heard, Boston is super Irish—with Southie being the Irish section of the predominantly Irish city. They go over all that in the show.

Patriots Day, when you have the Boston Marathon, a Sox game, and either the Bruins or Celtics home game is when Boston is at its most pure, but St. Paddy’s Day is a close second. The city is totally shut down. It’s a true, no work holiday in the city—not for St. Paddy’s but Evacuation Day.

A while back, all of the Irish politicians in Boston cracked open a history book, saw that General Howe’s British Army retreated back to Nova Scotia, and seized the opportunity to not come into work on March 17th. That’s how Evacuation Day was born.

So the night of St. Patrick’s Day going into the following morning is a great time to commit a crime in Boston’s Back Bay.

The Artwork

Like I said, this stuff is still missing and the museum is offering a $10 million reward for any information leading to the art’s recovery. Here’s some of the art starting with the most famous:

*The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633) by Rembrandt van Rijn*

*Chez Tortoni (c. 1875) by Édouard Manet*

*The Concert (c. 1664) by Johannes Vermeer*

*A Lady and Gentleman in Black (1633) by Rembrandt*

*Landscape with Obelisk (1638) by Govert Flinck*

*La Sortie de Pesage (date unknown) by Edgar Degas*

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is the Honda Civic of painters, thieves love to steal his work.

In the past 100 years, there have been 81 thefts of Rembrandts paintings. The Dutch artist is the second most stolen artist in history, behind Pablo Picasso. However, Picasso was more prolific so if you did a per-painting analysis, Rembrandt is the most stolen artist.

There’s one piece nicknamed the “takeaway Rembrandt.” It’s been stolen four times!

*Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III* aka the Takeaway Rembrandt (1632)

Last Seen Podcast

If you’ve already watched the show and would like to dive a little deeper into the heist, WBUR put out a great podcast a while ago called Last Seen. It’s 10 episodes long and they introduce even more potential suspects, including Brian McDevitt the ultimate flim-flam man.

By the way if you’re into podcasts, here are some other True Crime podcasts you may be interested in.

Charlesgate Confidential

For a fictitious version of the Gardner Heist. Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak is about a Boston area art heist. The heist takes place in the 1940s, and the story goes from the 40s to the 80s, to the present day and it’s a fun ride all the way through.

In case you were wondering, the painting in this Paul Mann cover is Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. It’s safe, you can see it at The Mauritshuis in the Netherlands.

Other Art Heists

Worcester Art Museum

Here’s an Art Heist that happened in the city I was born in. On May 12, 1972, two men in ski masks went into the Worcester Art Museum, swiped a Rembrandt painting, a Picasso, and two Gauguins. They then shot and wounded a museum guard on their way out.

This heist is more like a bumbling Donald Westlake caper than anything. Instead of being inconspicuous, prior to the crime, they flirted with a couple of high school girls — also, they shot that guard. When they were in the getaway car, one of the Gauguins fell off the roof.

They got caught because they got drunk and bragged about the heist at some bar. I love the witnesses Rita Pope’s quote in this T&G article:

“I mean, a guy was shot… The paintings were back, but it was nothing to celebrate.”
Rita Pope, this Telegram & Gazette article

This, the Gardner Museum heist, and other heists are mentioned in Stealing Rembrandts by Anthony Amore and Tom Mashberg.

The Mona Lisa

Leonard DaVinci’s Mona Lisa has more or less been on permanent display at the Louvre since 1797. For a time it was in Napoleon’s bedroom, but other than that, it’s been a Louvre inhabitant since the late 18th Century.

On August 21, 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre. As mentioned in Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of the Mona Lisa by R.a. Scotti, Pablo Picasso was a prime suspect of the crime for a while.

The real culprit was Vincenzo Peruggia. Peruggia was an Italian patriot who thought that DaVinci’s work should have been displayed in an Italian museum. He was working in the Louvre making the glass case that was supposed to house the piece. He swiped it during normal museum hours and then walked out with it under his coat.

Peruggia kept the Mona Lisa in his apartment for two years and was eventually caught when he attempted to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Uffizi took their sweet assed time returning the artwork to the Louvre. Only doing so after it was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for over two weeks.

The Scream

Inspiration for the Ghostface Killah in the movie Scream, Edvard Munch’s The Scream has been stolen twice. Well, Munch made 6 versions of The Scream, so technically two different versions were stolen, but still.

1994:

On February 12, 1994—the same day as the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer—two men stole the more famous and well-known version of The Scream at the National Gallery, Oslo. This more famous painting is above, it’s from 1893, and it’s oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard. The thieves left a note reading “Thanks for the poor security.” Dicks! I love it.

After the museum refused to pay the $1 million ransom, Norwegian police set up a sting operation with help from the British police and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The painting was recovered on May 7, 1994.

A couple years later, four men were convicted in the theft. However, they were released on appeal on legal grounds: the British agents involved in the sting entered Norway under false identities. Which is super weak.

2004:

The 1910 version of The Scream was taken from the Munch Museum on August 22, 2004, by gun-toting, mask-wearing thieves along with Munch’s Madonna.

They were both recovered almost exactly 2 years later, on August 31, 2006. Norwegian police announced that they had recovered both The Scream and Madonna, but they didn’t reveal any details about the recovery.

The City Museum Diamond Heist

The last heist on our list features Feathers McGraw and a goofy man in robot pants.

The Heist

The Boston Mob

St. Paddy’s Day 1990

The Artwork