The Empty Frames

In 1990, two men stole 13 works of art worth half a billion dollars from the Gardner Museum. The empty frames still hang on the walls.

Show Notes

In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men posing as Boston police officers talked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Over the next 81 minutes, they stole 13 works of art including a Vermeer and Rembrandts only seascape. Total value: over half a billion dollars. Thirty-six years later, not a single work has been recovered. The empty frames still hang on the walls.

What is The Vault?

The most valuable things in Europe keep disappearing. True crime stories about lost art.
Art theft, museum heists, and stolen treasures, the stories behind Europe's most dramatic cultural crimes. From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to Nazi looted art, told with the warmth of an art historian and the precision of a detective.

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