Thursday, March 29, 2007

A different kind of heist flick

Fans of art-theft stories (you know who you are) should check their local listings for the PBS series "Independent Lens," which is currently featuring a documentary called STOLEN, about the 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston:

"The $500-million heist is one of the largest fine arts thefts ever. Posing as police officers, thieves cut 13 canvases from their frames and walked off with such masterpieces as Rembrandt’s 'Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee' and Vermeer’s 'The Concert.' 'Unfortunately, the works were not insured, and 17 years later, the art world still holds out hope that they will be returned to their frames,” said Dorit Straus, vice president of [insurance company] Chubb & Son .... Directed by award-winning independent filmmaker Rebecca Dreyfus, the documentary explores the unusual, unsolved crime through the colorful cast of characters surrounding the search for the masterpieces and the culprits."

Chubb is sponsoring the show. Its full press release is here. There's lots more at the "Independent Lens" site. Here is a detailed news piece from 2002. Here is a short previous post.