The Gardner Museum Is Offering $10 Million for Its Stolen Masterpieces

The Largest Reward Ever From a Private Institution

Somewhere in the world, 13 stolen artworks sit in hiding. A Vermeer. Three Rembrandts. Five Degas sketches.

They vanished from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on March 18, 1990, and nobody has seen them since.

The museum is now offering $10 million for information that leads to their safe return. It’s the largest reward ever offered by a private institution for stolen art.

The FBI says it knows who took them. The thieves are dead. But the paintings are still out there, and the empty frames still hang on the museum walls, waiting.

The FBI Says It Knows Who Did It

In 2013, the FBI announced it had identified the two thieves.

George Reissfelder and Leonard DiMuzio, two associates of the late mobster Carmello Merlino, were the culprits.

Retired FBI agent Geoffrey Kelly, who led the investigation for more than two decades, believes Merlino likely sent Reissfelder and DiMuzio into the museum to steal the paintings. But there’s a problem.

Both died within a year of the heist. Reissfelder died from a drug overdose. DiMuzio was murdered. Merlino himself died in prison in 2005.

The men who could answer questions are gone.

The Trail Went Cold in Philadelphia

After the robbery, some of the art was likely moved to Connecticut and Philadelphia before it ended up with another man linked to the mob, Robert Guarente.

The FBI believed Guarente then gave at least some of the art to Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile.

But a search of Gentile’s Connecticut home in 2013 turned up none of the art, though investigators did find a handwritten list of the stolen Gardner paintings and their estimated worth.

Gentile died in 2021 and always denied ever having seen the paintings. The trail ends there.

Two Fake Cops Talked Their Way In

The heist happened just after St. Patrick’s Day celebrations wound down in Boston.

On March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers rang the night bell for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, claiming they were responding to a disturbance.

The guard on duty broke protocol and let them through the employee entrance. At the fake officers’ request he stepped away from the watch desk.

That decision would cost the museum half a billion dollars in art.

They Had 81 Minutes Alone Inside

Once inside, they overpowered and tied up the security guards in the basement. The thieves used duct tape and handcuffs.

The guards were not discovered until the new shift came to relieve them around 8 am. For 81 minutes, the two men had the run of the place.

Motion detectors recorded the thieves’ movements as they made their way to the galleries. They knew where they were going.

Vermeer’s Rarest Painting Vanished

The biggest prize was in the Dutch Room on the second floor. “The Concert” by Johannes Vermeer is one of only 34 paintings attributed to him.

The painting accounts for half of the overall theft’s value, estimated at $250 million. Art experts consider it the most valuable stolen object in the world.

Vermeer died in 1675, and fewer than three dozen of his works survive. This one may never be seen again.

Rembrandt’s Only Seascape Is Gone

The thieves also targeted Rembrandt. “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” is his only seascape and the most valuable of his works stolen that night.

Estimates have placed its value at about $140 million.

The 1633 painting shows Christ calming a storm while terrified disciples cling to the boat. The missing paintings had been cut from the frames, instead of carefully removed.

The damage may be irreversible.

The Stolen Art Is Worth $500 Million

The total haul included 13 works of art valued at over $500 million at the time of the heist, making it the largest property crime in U.S. history.

Beyond the Vermeer and Rembrandts, they took five Degas works, a bronze eagle finial, and Manet’s “Chez Tortoni” from the Blue Room.

They also grabbed an ancient Chinese bronze gu, or beaker, dating back more than 3,000 years. Strangely, the thieves ignored Titian’s “The Rape of Europa,” one of the most valuable pieces in the entire collection.

Isabella Gardner Built Her Own Palace

The museum exists because of one woman’s obsession. Isabella Stewart Gardner was an American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts.

After her husband died in 1898, she purchased land in the marshy Fenway area of Boston and hired architect Willard T. Sears to build Fenway Court, modeled on the Renaissance palaces of Venice.

She was involved in every detail. The museum opened on January 1, 1903, with a grand celebration featuring a performance by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Her Will Forbids Any Changes

Gardner died in 1924, but her influence never left. In her will, Gardner bequeathed the museum to the city of Boston as a public institution.

There was one condition: the collection had to be maintained precisely as Gardner had arranged it. Nothing could be added, removed or rearranged.

That rule still applies today.

The museum cannot sell pieces, cannot move them to different rooms, and cannot replace stolen works with other art. What Isabella decided stays decided.

Empty Frames Still Hang in the Dutch Room

Walk into the Dutch Room today and you’ll see something strange. The museum decided to display the empty frames in 1994, four years after the heist.

It’s an intentional choice designed to send a message to the public, a reminder of what was lost and hope that what was once there will someday return.

The gilded frames hang on the walls with nothing inside them.

The museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading directly to the safe return of the stolen works.

Thirty-five years later, they’re still waiting.

Visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Massachusetts

The museum is located at 25 Evans Way in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. Hours are 11 am to 5 pm most days, with extended hours until 9 pm on Thursdays.

The museum is closed on Tuesdays. Adult admission is $22, seniors pay $20, and college students with ID pay $15. Children 17 and under get in free.

The first Thursday of each month is free for everyone from 3 to 9 pm.

And here’s a quirk: anyone named Isabella receives free lifetime admission. Book tickets online in advance, as popular times sell out.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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