playing card B1: Rembrandt: Self Portrait (1630)
April 14, 2020
playing card G3: Camille Pissarro: Bords de la Seine à Bougival (1871)
April 14, 2020
Rembrandt: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633)
completed
stolen
longest side (cm)
est. value ($ mill.)
Rembrandt van Rijn - the baroque king from Leiden
Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden in the Dutch province of South Holland in 1606. He died on October 4th, 1669 in Amsterdam. Rembrandt is one of the most important and best-known Dutch baroque artists.
With the dimensions 161.7 x 161.8 cm, the stolen oil painting “Christ in the storm on the Sea of Galilee” from 1633 is one of the best known Rembrandt. The artwork was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on March 18, 1990 with 12 other art objects. All stolen works of art have been lost to this day.
The art theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Gallery in Boston
While all of Boston was celebrating St. Patrick's Day in March 1990, the doorbell rang late in the evening at the main entrance to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The security service in the museum keeps watch like every other day. The value of the Stewart Gardner Museum is immeasurable: a total of around two and a half thousand important art history exhibits are exhibited and archived here. But at night you cannot look at the works of art. So we ring the bell at the museum door at this time?
With security cameras, the guards see two police officers standing at the entrance. "A silent alarm was raised, can we come in?" it sounds through the intercom. The security guards' regulations clearly state that you should never open the doors without first informing the museum director. Even better, you check the silent alarm, then send the waiting policemen away from the door and do not need to inform the museum director at all, especially not on St Patrick's Day, a holy holiday. But contrary to all regulations, the guards open the door and let the two police officers enter.
Famous art robbery: Rembrandt's oil painting Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee was created in 1633 and stolen from the Boston Isabella Stewart Gardner Gallery in 1990.
Works of art worth over half a billion dollars stolen
Now everything happens very quickly: Both guards are overwhelmed, tied up and gagged by the police and locked in different rooms. The next day the whole world knows: Two thieves disguised as police officers deliberately stole 13 works of art from what was then $ 300 million - which corresponds to a current value of about $ 540 million. Among the paintings is Édouard Manet's “Chez Tortoni”. As a precaution, the thieves also took the videotape on which they were filmed with the surveillance camera. All 13 works of art have not appeared again to this day.
The FBI suspects Irish gangster James Bulger, who was arrested in California in June 2011, behind this incredible robbery of art - but for 19 times murder, drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering. Some claim that Bulger stole the works of art that night in 1990 in an attempt to mitigate the circumstances after his eventual arrest. However, James Bulger remains silent and has not mentioned anything about an art theft in Boston.