The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading directly to the recovery in good condition of all 13 works of art stolen on March 18, 1990. The Museum, working closely with the FBI and the US Attorney's Office, continues to seek facts that could result in the safe return of the art. A share of the reward is promised in exchange for information leading to the restitution of any individual work or group of works. An additional reward of $100,000 is being offered for information leading to the return of the Napoleonic eagle finial.

The facts are these: In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men in police uniforms rang the Museum intercom and stated they were responding to a disturbance. The guard on duty broke protocol and allowed them through the employee entrance. At the thieves’ direction, he stepped away from the security desk. He and a second security guard were led to the basement of the Museum where they were restrained.

Motion detectors recorded the thieves’ movements as they made their way to the galleries. They took several well-known works of art from the Museum’s second floor Dutch Room. They cut Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black from their frames; removed Vermeer’s Concert and Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk from their frames; pulled an ancient Chinese bronze gu, or beaker, from a table; and took a small self-portrait etching by Rembrandt from the side of a chest and removed it from its frame. In the Short Gallery, also on the second floor, they took five Degas works and a bronze eagle finial. They also stole Manet’s Chez Tortoni from the Blue Room on the Museum’s first floor, leaving its frame behind as well.

The thieves departed at 2:45 am, making two separate trips to their car with the artworks. The guards remained handcuffed until police arrived at 8:15 am.

For more details, explore the Museum with a special audio tour below.

Anyone with information about the stolen artworks should contact the Museum’s security director at the number or email address below. Confidentiality is assured.

Anthony Amore
Director of Security
617 278 5114
reward@gardnermuseum.org

Retrace the steps of the thieves with Anthony Amore, Director of Security, and explore how the loss of these masterpieces affects how we experience Isabella’s vision today with Nathaniel Silver, Associate Director and Chief Curator.