Apr 7, 2021 - Economy & Business

New Netflix series investigates one of the world's most expensive art heists

Mike Allen
FBI photo of the crime scene after the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery.

FBI photo of the crime scene after the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery. Photo via Netflix

Premiering Wednesday on Netflix ... "This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist," a four-part documentary series from director Colin Barnicle taking viewers back 30 years to St. Patrick's Day weekend in 1990.

  • "[L]egendary works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and others worth over half a billion dollars today were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston."

The series covers "the leads, dead ends, lucky breaks and speculations that characterized the investigation of this still unsolved mystery."

  • The bottom line, from @BarnicleBros: "500 million dollars worth of stolen art and a 10 million dollar reward for whoever finds it. ... #ThisIsARobbery."

The Guardian writes: "The project, five-plus years in the making, takes a comprehensive a look at a case barely thawed in 30 years; it consults crime scene photos and evidence logs, interviews key journalists and legal figures, and studies several theories."

  • "Barnicle and his brother, Nick, Boston-area natives long fascinated by the case, began investigating in 2014 and shooting in 2015, a process which involved years of combing the local web of investigators."
Missing for 30 years: Rembrandt’s "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee."
Missing for 30 years: Rembrandt’s "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee." Graphic design (background and framing): Ellie Sisler. Photo courtesy Barnicle Brothers

Go deeper: Watch the trailer.

  • All 13 missing pieces of art are featured on @barniclebrothers Instagram, with the story behind each work.
A map of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, highlighting the alarms that were set off in each room during the robbery.
A map of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, highlighting the alarms that were set off in each room during the robbery. Photo: Netflix
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