The Empty Frames
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men posing as Boston police officers talked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Over the next 81 minutes, they stole 13 works of art — including Vermeer's The Concert, Rembrandt's only seascape, and five Degas sketches. Total value: over half a billion dollars.
The thieves cut the canvases from their frames. They took a brass eagle finial worth almost nothing while leaving a Raphael untouched. They removed the security tapes. And they vanished into the Boston night.
Thirty-six years later, not a single work has been recovered. A ten million dollar reward remains unclaimed. And in the museum's Dutch Room, the empty frames still hang on the walls.
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