Hours after St. Patrick's Day festivities wrapped up in Boston on March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers knocked on the security entrance side door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum at 1:24 a.m. "The policy has always been that you don't open that door in the middle of the night for God. Why on this one night they opened the door no one can explain," Lyle Grindle, the museum's current head of security, told Access Control & Security Systems, a security industry trade publication. Grindle was not in charge of security at the time of the 1990 heist. Just minutes after letting them in, the guards quickly learned that the late night visitors weren't real cops. Though they apparently did not brandish any weapons, the intruders managed to overpower the two guards. They handcuffed the guards, bound them with duct tape and left them in the basement.
In the fewer than 90 minutes that followed, the bandits went through the museum's Dutch Room on the second floor and stole three Rembrandts, including the Dutch artist's only seascape, "Storm on the Sea of Galilee." It was one of several works the thieves savagely cut to release it from its frame, leaving ragged edges of the canvas behind in otherwise empty frames, which continue to hang in the museum to this day. Also taken from that room was "The Concert" by Vermeer, as well as a Chinese bronze beaker located near the Rembrandt. The thieves also apparently tried to steal a fourth Rembrandt but were unsuccessful. Nearby, they also made off with "Landscape with an Obelisk," an oil painting by Govaert Flinck that was until recently attributed to Rembrandt, Flinck's mentor. On the other side of the floor, the thieves went into the Short Gallery and ripped five Degas sketches from the wall. Feet away a bronze eagle that adorned the top of a Napoleonic flag was also pillaged. A Manet portrait, located in the museum's Blue Room on the first floor, capped off the list of works the thieves stole.
It is not known in what order the rooms were ransacked, since the thieves ripped out the surveillance tape before fleeing the museum with it. To this day, the small museum isn't able to collect insurance, since it carried no insurance policy at the time of the heist.
In the fewer than 90 minutes that followed, the bandits went through the museum's Dutch Room on the second floor and stole three Rembrandts, including the Dutch artist's only seascape, "Storm on the Sea of Galilee." It was one of several works the thieves savagely cut to release it from its frame, leaving ragged edges of the canvas behind in otherwise empty frames, which continue to hang in the museum to this day. Also taken from that room was "The Concert" by Vermeer, as well as a Chinese bronze beaker located near the Rembrandt. The thieves also apparently tried to steal a fourth Rembrandt but were unsuccessful. Nearby, they also made off with "Landscape with an Obelisk," an oil painting by Govaert Flinck that was until recently attributed to Rembrandt, Flinck's mentor. On the other side of the floor, the thieves went into the Short Gallery and ripped five Degas sketches from the wall. Feet away a bronze eagle that adorned the top of a Napoleonic flag was also pillaged. A Manet portrait, located in the museum's Blue Room on the first floor, capped off the list of works the thieves stole.
It is not known in what order the rooms were ransacked, since the thieves ripped out the surveillance tape before fleeing the museum with it. To this day, the small museum isn't able to collect insurance, since it carried no insurance policy at the time of the heist.