Why stolen art doesn’t usually end up in an evil billionaire’s secret lair.
HOW THE TRUE VALUE OF STOLEN ART MIGHT BE LIKE A GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD
At t he very peak of popular culture, in 1962, the legend of lost art flashed on movie screens in dozens of countries, cementing in millions of imaginations the belief that great art is held in secret by the rich and powerful. Those who love a mystery know the legend: when a masterpiece is stolen it probably ends up in a secret cellar of some evil billionaire’s castle, never to be seen again by anyone except the evil billionaire and his friends.
All this nicely played out in a vintage James Bond movie, Dr. No, starring the real ( or, as many believe, authentic) Sean Connery. At a certain moment, looking around the lair of the man he’s been sent to eliminate, Bond comes upon an easel holding a portrait by Goya of the Duke of Wellington. He stops to get a look at it, giving the audience a moment to chortle over it and to let those who recognize it to explain it to those who don’t. Famously, it was stolen.
It was well known even before a thief got it. It was auctioned by its owner, the 11th Duke of Leeds, and acquired by an American. But the U.K. government, to prevent it leaving Britain, helped a foundation buy it for the National Gallery. Put on exhibit on Aug. 2, 1961, it was stolen 19 days later. It was returned years later by the burglar who took it.
In mundane truth, few evil billionaires have clandestine art collections. Those who steal art almost always plan to ransom it by extorting as much money as possible from the insurers, and it’s routine for the thieves to argue about negotiating with insurers and each other.
Museums will go to any length to get their art back. After two Turner oils were stolen in Frankfurt while on loan from London, Sandy Nairne of the Tate Gallery spent eight years negotiating (successfully) to get them back from the criminal world. In 2011, he told that grimy story in his book, Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners.
Art theft by governments plays a large role in the history of culture and the Nazi government tried hard to assemble a Louvresize collection for Germany. But the largest private art theft in world history took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on March 18, 1990.
After midnight two men dressed as police talked their way through the night guards at the museum. They tied up the guards and then spent just 81 minutes gathering 13 works of art, which were valued then at about $ 500 million. It may have been the largest- value private theft ever. The museum offered a reward of $ 5 million, later raised to $10 million, for information leading to recovery. But no arrests have been made and no art recovered.
Among the pieces stolen was Vermeer’s The Concert. By current auction prices it would easily draw $ 200 million. Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, his only known seascape, was also taken, along with other works by Rembrandt, Degas and Manet.
The police believe the two fake cops have both died in prison, but long after they had handed over the loot to the criminal gang that backed them. The FBI claims the art was offered for sale in Philadelphia during the early 2000s. A Boston gangster, Bobby Donati, murdered in 1991, has been cited as collaborator in the heist. Tips are still sometimes sent to the Gardner, which hasn’t given up yet.
Journalists at the Boston Globe recently outlined “Six theories behind the stolen Gardner Museum paintings.” They mentioned Carmello Merlino, a mob associate who boasted to two informants that he planned to recover the artwork and collect the reward. When he was caught trying to rob an armoured car depot he offered to trade the art for leniency, but he never produced it. He died in prison in 2005.
Robert Guarente, a convicted bank robber with Mafia ties, was believed to be involved. He died in 2004 and his widow said he gave two of the stolen paintings to a Connecticut mobster, Robert Gentile. But Gentile, though promised leniency in exchange for the stolen artwork, said he knew nothing about it. It appears that half the hoods in Boston added some bragging about the Gardner robbery to their everyday conversation. Even James (“Whitey”) Bulger, Boston’s leading gangster and also an FBI informant, now in jail for murder, wanted to get involved. He told friends that he was looking for the art because, he could use it in the future as a “get out of jail free card.”