FBI Accused of Deception in Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist Investigation: Discrepancies Emerge in Stolen Art Count and Alleged Rembrandt Portrait (Parts 1, 2 and 3)
On March 18, 1990 two men dressed as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. We have been told that they imprisoned the two guards and left with 13 works of art estimated to be worth half a billion dollars. Since then there has been false lead after false lead. In 2014, the FBI held a huge press conference announcing that they had solved the case but the perpetrators were dead; no paintings found. It remains a mystery of the art world, most recently explored in the Netflix documentary, This is a Robbery.
This investigation has been stalled for over three decades. It is time to look at the flawed and deceptive police work.
FBI Deceptions
The thieves did not take 13 artworks. Only 10 works of art were stolen. There was no tiny etching of Rembrandt titled “Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man” in the Gardner Museum’s collection. The picture shown is actually at the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands. At least two of the Degas sketches were fakes created after the theft and never stolen. The Gardner museum was unusual in that the art was to be shown exactly the way Isabella had left it…
