Netflix Gardner Museum Heist - Saudi Arabia s Refusal To Loan Salvator Mundi - theVOV A New Virtual Arts Ecosystem artlyst.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from artlyst.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A Netflix four-part documentary is shining a light on the unsolved infamous half a billion dollar heist of artwork from a Boston museum.
This is a Robbery recounts the story of the world s biggest art theft, which saw 13 paintings, estimated to be worth $500million, taken from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on 18 March 1990.
Two thieves disguised as Boston police officers talked their way into the museum at 1:20am, handcuffed and blindfolded security with duct tape before snatching Storm on the Sea of Galilee - Rembrandt’s only seascape - and The Concert, by Johannes Vermeer – which is valued at $250 million, and remains the most valuable stolen object in the world.
Empty frames: the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum
Credit: Boston Globe
It’s the most costly St Patrick’s Day in art history. Around 1am on Sunday 18 March 1990, as revellers stumbled home from a hard day’s boozing and Boston’s police forces mustered for the downtown parade later that day, two men dressed as cops showed up outside the quiet back entrance to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
One of the two night watchmen on duty, a 23-year-old music school dropout called Rick Abath, buzzed them in. The men ordered Abath to call his partner down to the security desk. They told him he matched a suspect description and to step out from behind the desk – away from his panic button, his only connection to the outside world. They shoved both guards up against the wall and, according to Abath, announced themselves: “Gentleman, this is a robbery.”
Episode 2: Inside Job? wbur.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wbur.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.