Special Reports - The Boston Globe

The lost masterpieces

On March 18, 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed of 13 valuable works of art by two thieves dressed as police officers.

Click on the artwork to hear a description

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Edgar Degas, La sortie de pesage

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Edgar Degas, Cortège aux environs de Florence

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Edgar Degas, Three mounted jockeys

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Edgar Degas, Program for an artistic soirée, 1884 (charcoal on white paper)

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Edgar Degas, Program for an artistic soirée, 1884 (a less-finished version, charcoal on buff paper)

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Edouard Manet, Chez Tortoni

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Johannes Vermeer, The Concert

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Rembrandt, A lady and gentleman in black

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Rembrandt, The storm on the Sea of Galilee

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Rembrandt, Self-portrait

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Govaert Flinck, Landscape with an obelisk

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

French gilded finial in the form of an eagle

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Chinese bronze ku

[Globe critic Sebastian Smee]

Produced by Monica Ulmanu, Javier Zarracina, Kailani Koenig-Muenster, and Alvin Chang/Globe Staff

The Gardner heist

special section

Boston’s last, great unsolved mystery

On this page, you can learn more about the Globe’s reexamination of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist, view the lost masterpieces, watch how the thieves broke in, and review the investigation over the years.