New video footage of one of the most notorious museum heists in history has surfaced, and it may lead investigators closer to the thieves of Rembrandt’s the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
The key to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery may lie with one of the museum’s security guards. Rick Abath, the guard on duty during the 1990 heist, was famously found bound with duct tape after the thieves – according to Abath – tricked him into letting them into the museum.
“They looked like cops,” Abath told Boston NPR affiliate WBUR. “And I let them in.”
Surveillance footage of the heist released by the FBI on Thursday shows a heretofore unknown guest apparently being granted entry to Boston’s Gardner museum the day before the robbery.
The security guard in the footage has not been identified by authorities as Abath, but it appears to show an unidentified man exiting a car and then being allowed inside the museum – against museum policy – by a security guard. The man uses the same rear entrance as the thieves, which they were not supposed to be using.
Twenty-five years after the famed art thievery, which cost the art-loving public more than a dozen paintings including work by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, officials hope it will spark some leads in the still-unsolved heist.
“By releasing this video, we hope to generate meaningful leads and ultimately recover the stolen artwork,” said Vincent Lisi, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston said in a public statement.
The combined value of the 13 works stolen in the early hours of 18 March 1990 is at least $500m, and the museum has offered a $5m reward for information leading to their recovery.
Some of the works stolen are huge – the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Vermeer’s The Concert both stand more than 5ft tall – raising the question of how they could have been removed without attracting notice. The Concert is one of only 34 firmly attributed paintings by Vermeer.
“We remain committed to one goal: the return of all 13 works to their rightful place, which is here at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,” said the museum’s director of security, Anthony Amore. “We believe that no stone should be left unturned.”
The Gardner museum keeps the paintings’ empty frames on display in their original positions.
