We finally cover the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft. You’re welcome! For our Season One finale, we give the biggest art theft in history the full Mara and Baker treatment. This episode has it all: piggy backs, Tape Head, Mafia guys, the IRA, wheat toast, Flim-Flam Man, a Julia Child sighting, and some quality time hearing Mara and Baker discuss our time living in Boston. We tell you everything we know about the March 18th, 1990 Boston crime that resulted in the loss of 13 works of art, including a Vermeer and two Rembrandts. Our discussion follows the four-part Netflix documentary on the heist, ‘This is a Robbery’ by the Barnicle Brothers. As we cover the chronology of each Netflix episode, we weave in additional information from WBUR’s Last Seen podcast and other news sources. This is the Gardner heist episode you’ve been waiting for?
It’s been one year since the the brazen smash-and-grab theft of the Van Gogh painting, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884). We look back at the theft, what we know so far, and we explore Van Gogh’s time spent in Nuenen, where he painted the stolen piece.
Update Tue 6 Apr 2021: Just hours after we published this blog post, a 58 year old man was taken into custody, accused of stealing both the Van Gogh Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884 and the Frans Hals Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer. The paintings have yet to be recovered.
A Timeline of What We Know
How it started: The Vincent van Gogh painting, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen was stolen from the Singer Laren museum in Laren, North Holland on Van Gogh’s birthday, March 30th, 2020. The painting was on loan from the Groninger Museum at the time of the theft — which no doubt led to an incredibly awkward conversation between museum directors.
Easy Heist: Octave Durham, a convicted thief who stole two van Gogh paintings from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and served time as a result, was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “This is the easiest art heist I’ve ever seen. His gear is not even professional. He’s got jeans and Nike sneakers on.”
Proof of Life: In June of 2020. photographs of the painting with a copy of the New York Times dated May 30th, 2020 were sent to Dutch art detective Arthur Brand.
Above: This image was released by Dutch art detective, Arthur Brand on June 18, 2020
August, 2020:RTV Noord reported there were, “strong indications that the stolen Van Gogh painting from the Groninger Museum has now been sold for several hundred thousand euros to Dutch criminals.”
February, 2021:De Telegraaf reported the investigation was focused on a suspect currently in jail for a major drug trafficking offense who allegedly paid for the painting’s theft. He hoped that its safe return could be used as a bargaining chip for a reduced sentence, but has so far been unsuccessful.
March 29, 2021: On his private Twitter account, Arthur Brand re-posts the May, 2020 proof of life photo with the following comment, “…it’s a year ago that this Van Gogh was stolen in the Netherlands. A suspect has been charged for fencing but the painting is still missing.”
How it’s going: On April 02, 2021, ARTCRIME.blog replied to Mr. Brand’s tweet to confirm the following status of the case: “Was the thief a ‘smash and grab’ for hire and now the guy who bought it has it hidden by accomplice as possible bargaining chip?” To which Brand replied, “yes.”
Update Tue 6 Apr 2021: Just hours after we published this blog post, a 58 year old man was taken into custody, accused of stealing both the Van Gogh Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884 and the Frans Hals Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer. The paintings have yet to be recovered.
Van Gogh in Neunen
Van Gogh moved in with his parents in Nuenen where his father was a pastor for the Dutch Reformed Church. He lived in Nuenen from December 1883 to November 1885, before moving to Antwerp to continue his education and discover new techniques.
His father was not thrilled by his arrival in Nuenen, but his parents allowed him to convert a dark and damp laundry/utility room (aka: the mangle room) into his bedroom and studio. In a letter to his brother, Vincent shares his discontent and diagrams the reality of his studio which shared space with coal storage and cesspit.
An excerpt of a letter from Vincent to Theo [March 20, 1884]: “I would take a slightly roomier studio somewhere, which I need in order to be able to work with a model. The one I have at present has the following geographical location.”
Above: Van Gogh’s diagram (annotated with English) of his bedroom and studio space in Neunen
“…and my powers of imagination aren’t strong enough to think this an improvement on the situation last year. This doesn’t alter the fact that, if I complain about something, there appear in your letters such passages as: I (Theo) think that your position is better now than last summer. Really?”
The Potato Eaters
Above: Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters
During that two year period in Nuenen, Van Gogh was prolific, producing hundreds of drawings, paintings, sketches and watercolors, many depicting the daily life of local peasants, including his first famous painting, The Potato Eaters.
In December 1988, thieves stole an early version of The Potato Eaters, and two more Van Gogh paintings; the Weaver’s Interior, and Dried Sunflowers from the Kröller-Müller Museum (located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo, Netherlands). In April 1989, the thieves returned Weaver’s Interior in hopes of receiving a $2.5 million ransom. The police were able to recover the other two Van Gogh paintings on July 14, 1989, but no ransom was paid.
On April 14, 1991, the Vincent van Gogh National Museum was robbed of twenty major paintings including the final version of The Potato Eaters. However, the getaway car caught a flat tire, forcing the criminals to flee and leave all of the paintings behind. The art was recovered just 35 minutes after the robbery.
You think you know Vincent van Gogh, bro? We go deep into the Vincent van Gogh stacks; his letters, his Neunen studio diagrams, alternate and credible versions of how he lost part of an ear, his less discussed “Peasant Painter” period when he moved back in with his parents and his studio was adjacent to a cesspit. Mara reveals van Gogh’s buddy Paul Gauguin as the total creep he was — a helluva painter, but a terrible creep of a man. The painting at the center of our heist, ‘The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’ triggers some flashbacks of scary paintings in Mara and Baker’s family homes. Our news is full of bad fakes of renowned artists, plus the story of a young couple who mistook an installation as an invitation to “interact” and leave some marks of their own. Awkward! Next, it’s onto the 2020 theft of Van Gogh’s ‘The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’, a smash-and-grab job by some casually dressed guy with a sledgehammer. We tell you everything we know, including the most recent update direct from Arthur Brand (aka: the Indiana Jones of the art world!)
Baker is a little disappointed about gatekeeping and elitism in the art community and wishes everyone would stop freaking out about NFTs — and as usual, Mara is the voice of reason who talks him off the ledge. In short, art is for everyone, damnit! We discuss the life of renowned sculptor, Henry Moore, and we pry into his World War I experience and wonder how it may have really influenced his work, and then Baker gets really excited about tank warfare, though to be clear he does not condone war! We share the story of a sleep-deprived roadtrip wherein Mara and Baker hallucinated deer and big horn sheep and then we dive into the latest news which makes us ask the question; do museums even know what they’ve really lost to art crime? We pause for a Star Wars reference, then it’s onto the crime! We’re impressed by the speed and precision required to steal and dismantle a two ton sculpture in the middle of the night, and then we wrap things up with Baker’s thirst for validation and 5 star reviews on Apple Podcasts.
We marvel at the roller coaster life and art of Henri Matisse and especially the massive amount of bullsh*t his wife Amelie had to put up with! To his credit and to the dismay of many, Matisse was an artist who refused to compromise and gave all of himself to his art, once telling an interviewer, “I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.” Our thief this episode has a real case of the “sneaky sneakies” according to Mara and we see a similar passion between the thief and our artist, Matisse. In art crime news, a God is returned to Nepal, charges are dropped over a Klimt painting theft, and Walmart steals a portrait from @artbyrizzo and sells it on printed canvasses, NOT cool!
Baker confuses didgeridoo noises for throat singing and Mara suggests he starts a YouTube channel for old ladies who knit. We go deep into the intense drama of Vermeer’s personal life and wonder how many priceless loaves of bread you could buy today in exchange for a Vermeer. Our news items are happy and sad this week; we discuss the recovery of an art theft we discussed way back in Episode 2, and then we say goodbye to the legendary art detective Charles Hill who died on February 20, 2021. RIP, Mr. Hill! Baker imagines a love triangle and betrayal lurking in the Vermeer painting, Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, but Mara sees something hilariously meta in it all. It’s the painting so nice, thieves stole it twice! First, by intellectual recalcitrant turned freedom fighter, Rose Dugdale and her Irish Republican Army compatriots. Next, it’s an infamous Irish career criminal nicknamed “The General”, Martin Cahill. Finally after two hits, the estate has the good sense to leave the painting’s security to the National Gallery of Ireland, where it hangs today.
“A masterpiece will tell you itself that it’s a masterpiece, it jumps out at you.” – Charles Hill
The art world lost a legend on February 22nd, 2021. Although famous for his 1994 recovery of Munch’s The Scream, retired detective Charles Hill said, “My greatest thrill was finding Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, which was stolen from Russborough House in 1986…”[Source: Country Life Magazine| March 16, 2009]
We are saddened to hear of the recent death of Charles Hill, Art Detective and a great friend of Russborough. “It’s the greatest masterpiece I’ve had the pleasure to hold,” said Hill when recovering Russborough's stolen Vermeer and Goya in 1993. Rest in Peace Charles. pic.twitter.com/lndm9g5oTt
“If Prince Valiant and Philip Marlowe shared custody of a single body,’ says Edward Dolnick, who wrote Stealing the Scream, ‘the result might resemble Charley.’” [Source: Country Life Magazine| March 16, 2009]
“It’s exhilarating to get what you’re going for back. I can actually recover these things and feel as if I’m doing my bit for creation.”
Charles Hill
Tributes from the Art Recovery World
Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) CEO, Lynda Albertson wrote a beautiful tribute for the @ARCA_artcrime blog, as seen and linked in the tweet below:
“His friends called him Charley, never Charles and certainly not Charlie.”
Lynda Albertson
Charles Hill, Art Detective ‘How I recovered The Scream’ – Witness – BBC News
Charles Hill developed an alter-ego for his undercover work, assuming the character Chris Roberts during his 1994 recovery of Munch’s The Scream.
“The character I came up with was Chris Roberts, was a slightly dodgy, mid-Atlantic accented art dealer who was doing some buying for the Getty Museum in Europe,” said Hill.
This was not the first time Hill took on the persona of Chris Roberts. In a Country Life Magazine from March, 2009, Hill explained that sometime in 1983 he, “…put on a mid-Atlantic accent and posed as an art dealer who had Arab buyers lined up for the Vermeer. (i.e. Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid)
Lucky Episode 7! Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (aka: Goya) is our focus this episode and boy do we have a lot to say about him. Mara and Baker are big fans! In our sharing is caring segment, we cover the recent “I just wanted to move the Warhol print for a laugh, I wasn’t going to steal it!” guy in Rochester, NY. Plus that dude who found Viking treasure last week, and then Baker explains why Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) is a low key genius who is mainstreaming NFT art sales with Christie’s. We briefly attempt to explain NFTs and what this Beeple auction at Christie’s might mean for the future of art. All of that and lots more Goya talk, including why his Los Caprichos series reminds Baker of an 80’s thrash metal band.
We reminisce about our trip to Puerto Rico, the street art of Vieques, and Mara falling into a pothole (with hilarious results, says Baker). We obsess over the evolution of Rembrandt’s nose through 30 years off self-portraits, we spend a little time discussing what was so “golden” about the Dutch Golden Age. We celebrate the [criminally overlooked] genius of some Dutch female painters of the era with a special shout out to Clara Peeters! Our news this week is all about the sometimes complicated topic of restitution, and then Mara jumps into yet another case where poor skylight security leads to a multi-million dollar art heist. Won’t someone please think of the skylights?!
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