Stolen: The Gardner Theft - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1944038523 ISBN 13: 9781944038526

Publisher: Benna Books, 2018

Synopsis

For the first time in twenty-seven years, The Gardner Museum has authorized a book on the daring theft from the Museum of thirteen priceless works of art, including three Rembrandts and Vermeer's The Concert, together worth over $500 million. The Museum is offering $10 million for safe return of all the works; the heist remains the largest unsolved theft in history. In the early morning hours of March 18th, 1990, two thieves disguised as police officers talked their way into the museum, and tied up the night guards. They cut some of the paintings from their frames and stacked up others to take, leaving behind a priceless Rembrandt leaning against a chest. It is believed that the thieves "came for the Rembrandts"-- but they also stole works by Vermeer, Degas, Manet, and Flinck, as well as a Chinese beaker and a Napoleonic eagle finial. Eighty-one minutes later they were gone. In 1903, Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her extraordinary museum, modeled after a Venetian palazzo, for the "enjoyment and education of the public forever." She had amassed an impressive collection including some of the finest masterpieces by Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, and Botticelli, as well as works by her contemporaries such as Sargent, Whistler, and Degas. The art works included paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, furniture, ceramics, glassware, books, manuscripts and ephemera--all but thirteen of which remain in place today. Stolen gives an inside look at the robbery and explores the impact of the missing works with commentary from the Museum's Director, Curators, and the Chief Investigator. They describe how the theft, often called a crime against humanity, has affected visitors and disrupted Isabella Stewart Gardner's careful arrangement of the works. The book is highly visual, with original photographs of the stolen objects, as well as how they originally looked placed in the galleries. Stolen, the only book on the theft commissioned by the Gardner Museum, provides the context to a brazen heist that left one of the world's great museums in search of its lost masterpieces.

About this title

Review:

A new book called "Stolen" documents the 1990 theft of 13 works from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It's not a true crime text, but a charming little art book that tells the story of the missing masterpieces, which include "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee," the only seascape painting attributed to Rembrandt, and "The Concert," one of only 36 extant works by Johannes Vermeer. Born into wealth in New York, Gardner was a thoughtful and idiosyncratic collector (one of the stolen treasures: a Chinese bronze vessel dating to the 12th century B.C.E.) who personally oversaw the creation of her namesake museum. In an act of curatorial ingenuity, empty frames continue to hang in the galleries, a reminder of what has been taken not from the institution but from all of us. "Stolen" is a slender volume, with short, lively essays by the museum's curators. In a sense, this is a practical book, one that functions almost like a wanted poster, reminding us that the hunt for these objects continues. At the same time, "Stolen" is an eloquent argument for the importance of these missing works and, by extension, art itself.--Rumaan Alam "New York Times "

About this edition

• Publisher: Benna Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1944038523
• ISBN 13: 9781944038526
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 36