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Posts Tagged ‘isabella stewart gardner’

Here come more spring photos. Most are from my walks, but the pictures of the gorgeous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston were take by Suzanne. She put lots more photos of the Gardner on Instagram, @lunaandstella.

The top picture illustrates for me how spring is a time of becoming. The tree is budding lustily over the lichen-covered branch.

But we weren’t quite done with snow. As you can see from the next image, the April 16 snowfall decorated trees already flowering out.

Patriot’s Day, traditionally April 19 in my neck of the woods, has had to be subdued during the pandemic. No parades. But as you can see, a few Minutemen mustered anyway. I guess that after starting the Revolution a year before Independence Day, they imagine germs, however deadly, can’t slow them down. I wonder if they ended up wearing masks.

I went looking for Jack-in-the-pulpit plants in the town forest as I haven’t seen one in years, but what I found was skunk cabbage and lots of it.

It was only last year while walking and asking questions of my phone that I realized the green tassels you see below are on oak trees. Takes a lifetime to learn basic things.

Umbrella Arts is doing a lot outdoors this year. I recently happened upon this jelly-fish-like hanging on a conservation trail, part of the Umbrella’s Change Is in the Air art walk. So pretty. The artists are Nicole Harris and karen [sic] Krolak.

At the Umbrella building itself there was a kind of awning made of paper cranes floating in a net.

Next three pictures: something called an Interrupted fern, a fuzzy thing beginning to unfurl; a Japanese quince; daffodils; and grandchildren at the New England Aquarium for a birthday celebration of Suzanne’s son.

Finally, the Gardner.

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Photo from FBI site: An empty frame in the Dutch Room of the Gardner Museum, where Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black once hung.

The agent overseeing the FBI investigation into the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist spoke at my workplace today (a real perk of my job).

I learned a lot. Did you know, for example, that because Mrs. Gardner’s will specified that no art was to be moved, sold, or replaced, the paintings had no insurance? They were not be replaced. The agent said that the usual scenario is that stolen art is held for ransom from the insurance company. The thieves probably didn’t dream that there was no insurance on Rembrandts and Vermeers.

Our speaker was quite entertaining (for example, showing a slide from the Simpsons cartoon in which Vermeer’s The Concert is found in Montgomery Burns’s mansion ). He answered many questions and punted others as the investigation is ongoing.

As you may have seen recently, the FBI announced that they knew who had stolen the art and at least two of the places it had been seen. They have not announced the names of the thieves but may do so once they work through all the leads the latest announcement has brought. The statute of limitations ran out on the theft after five years (Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy subsequently pushed through a federal law extending the limit to 20 years), but possession of stolen art is a crime not subject to time limits.

I learned that the museum had good security. As most locals know, the guards let the thieves in believing they were cops. When you have a Trojan Horse inside, security doesn’t help, the agent said. Nowadays guards in different museums call each other every 20 minutes just to check.

Extensive research has shown there has never been a museum theft like this, where the thieves stole so much of value and also so much of little value and took a leisurely 81 minutes to do so.

And perhaps there has never been a crime at a major museum where the paintings were not insured.

The agent believes the art will be recovered one day. Read the FBI dedicated site, here.

Photo: Simpsons

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