Some of the works stolen from the Stewart Gardner Museum include (clockwise from left), Vermeer’s “The Concert” (1658–1660), Rembrandt’s only seascape, “Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), and Edouard Manet’s “Chez Tortoni” (1878–1880) (images courtesy Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum via Hartford Courant)
The Hartford Courant reports that one of the world’s great unsolved art thefts may have a new lead. In 1990, two men posing as Boston police officers wandered the halls of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole 13 works, included three Rembrandts, five Degas drawings and works by Vermeer and Manet. And now this from Manchester, Connecticut:
Authorities suspect Gentile, 75, has information about the irreplaceable art that vanished in a sensational theft from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 22 years ago. Weapons charges were filed against him last month, but he has not been charged in the art heist, and his attorney said he knows nothing about it.
UPDATE: The Boston Herald has published a short article on the new possible lead. It’s still unclear if there will be a break in the case but they write the following:
One close associate of the accused gangland serial killer said they’re “sure” the 82-year-old South Boston mobster knows something about what fate befell 13 masterpieces ripped from the Fenway gallery’s walls in 1990, and whose vanishing act has outlasted the 16 years he was one of the FBI’s Most Wanted fugitives.
