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Monday, March 18, 2013

Visual Art The G-Men Have A New Site Devoted to the Gardner Thefts (Everybody's Favorite Unsolved Art Mystery)

Posted by Jen Graves on Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 1:03 PM

Neato. It happened 23 years ago today.

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I'm totally fascinated by stolen priceless works. What is the market for this? I get that there's places in the world where anything goes for the insanely wealthy, but the world is a smaller and smaller place these days. It's not like you can brag to your dinner party guests about that Rembrandt.

I can't help but think the primary motivation for these thefts is nothing more but the thrill of the heist, and if these are recovered it will be from the home of a deceased man's basement in Pittsburgh or Toledo or Fresno, rolled up in the corner .

Posted by Dougsf on March 18, 2013 at 1:32 PM

Jen,
I just read that in the NYT. I very much recall the theft. It was huge. Those works were priceless. I especially like the Jan Vermeer one, "The Concert". I find art thievery most unfortunate. Still, as @1 believes I, too think the thieves are in it for the sheer audacity. Nice to know they, the FBI have the names of the perps. I do hope the works are recovered. I also agree that the current possessors of these pieces probably don't know the provenance.

Posted by lark on March 18, 2013 at 2:25 PM

What's most amazing is that if you go to the Gardner today, they just have blank spots on the walls where the stolen works used to be, and a tiny placard noting that the previous occupant of the space was stolen.

Posted by i don't know on March 18, 2013 at 3:52 PM

I know I could just google this, but I must comment that it's annoying that the website has no links (that I could find) to larger photos of the paintings. ???

Posted by gunmmoontree on March 18, 2013 at 8:07 PM