On St. Patrick’s Day, 1990, a great heist rattled the art world with Thomas Crown-like choreography. Thirteen pieces were stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, one of the great private collections of the 'Dutch Masters' in the world. The robbers (dressed as police officers) took off with the paintings, but ominously left their frames.
30 years later, those frames remain empty, prominently displayed on the walls of the second floor gallery. The paintings, from the likes of Rembrandt & Vermeer, are rumored to be worth in excess of $500M. Mysteriously, they remain missing. In bequeathing her collection to the public, Gardner had one conditition that would eventually haunt the house for generations. The art would be for the people, but it mustn’t be moved or changed in any way. Unable to see how fate would have it, that wish would turn the Gardner Frames into artifacts of their own: powerful, but also lacking.
Frames provide structure, but not protection. They are themselves works of art, but modestly, often overshadowed. They champion a particular point of view, which is necessarily subjective and therefore not necessarioy reliable. We love frames, falible they may be. Expect some sticky ones soon!
Photo Credit: Philip Keith (@philip_keith) for Bloomberg Businessweek (@businessweek)
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