Famous Museum Renovating & Hoping Stolen Artwork Returned

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston boasts a curious collection of items and artifacts, arranged as the museum’s namesake dictated before she opened it to the public in 1903. Her collection was built with her husband John Lowell Gardner (nicknamed Jack) and when he passed she wanted to preserve their efforts for others to see.

The museum was burgled in 1990 and the thieves have never been caught. The thieves took some of the paintings, leaving their frames behind. For 35 years the mystery of the stolen artworks has never been solved, not have any of the stolen pieces been recovered. Now, the museum is renovating the spaces these works once stood and restoring the frames – hoping that one day the items will come back to their rightful place.

The museum is unlike most other art museums in that the galleries are centered around a lush interior courtyard filled with thriving plants. And inside, the galleries are not arranged by year or artist or region. Rather, they are assembled as Gardener herself thought they should be: according to her taste.

Some rooms are salon style, some areas seem to recreate halls on other continents, while other rooms contain flip book-style displays visitors can move and interact with. Each space is unique and for this reason each room is a time capsule of Gardener’s tastes and ideas.

Ongoing restorations to the museum must be kept in line with Isabella Stewart Gardner’s will which states that no changes are to be be made to the artworks or the displays – and that includes features like the frames and the ceilings.

The museum in general does not curate, remove, reframe, sell, or buy pieces for the original collection as her wish was for everything she collected to be displayed as she placed it- forever. That means that the frames of the stolen artworks got restored for maintenance this year despite the fact that the paintings are gone.

What Was Stolen

The pieces stolen are as follows:

The Concert by Johannes Vermeer

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn

A Lady and Gentleman in Black by Rembrandt van Rijn

Self-Portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn

Landscape with Obelisk by Govert Flinck

Chez Tortoni by Édouard Manet

La Sortie de Pesage by Edgar Degas

Cortege aux Environs de Florence by Edgar Degas

Program for an Artistic Soirée 1 by Edgar Degas

Program for an Artistic Soirée 2 by Edgar Degas

Three Mounted Jockeys by Edgar Degas

An ancient Chinese gu (a ritual bronze vessel)

A French Imperial Eagle finial from the Napoleonic Wars

The Infamous Theft

The works were stolen in the early hours of March 18, 1990 , when two men impersonating police officers approached museum security claiming they were responding to a disturbance. The men then bound the security guards and stole 13 works from the museum.

Because the combined value of the works is so high ($500M) the FBI considers this to be the largest theft of property on record in the world.

But, many staff members remain hopeful that the stolen works will one day be returned to their rightful places. And, when they do their frames will be waiting for them, in pristine condition. It’s not just the frames of the stolen Rembrandts that are being worked on.

The Restoration of the Dutch Room

The Dutch Room of the museum housed some of the stolen Rembrandt works, as well as many of his works that remain on the walls today. The gallery is dark on one side, but the sage green damask fabric wall covering reflects the light as it comes in from the courtyard on the other side.

The restoration of this room is set to be completed by 2027 with the green fabric on the chopping block. Despite Gardner’s will that nothing be changed, the fabric was added in the 1950s to replace damaged antique fabrics and replaced a series of older fabrics.

These fabrics are now being recreated in a factory in Lyon, France, that specializes in producing antique-style textiles. The 16th century Italian painted wood ceiling, taken from an nobleman’s house or a great hall is also being restored. New energy efficient lighting is being installed and the floor tiles, commissioned from a Pennsylvania maker by Gardner, will be refinished as well.

You can see some of the restoration process in the video below.