Download or read book The Museum Heist A Tale of Art and Obsession written by Kameel Nasr and published by Curiosity Books. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early morning hours after St. Patrick's Day, 1990, two men disguised as policemen gain access to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a stately four-story Italian mansion in the Fenway district of Boston. They handcuff the guards, wrap their mouths with duct tape, and proceed to commit the largest robbery in history. The stolen masterpieces, including Vermeer's The Concert, a Degas, a Manet, and three irreplaceable Rembrandts, are valued at half a billion dollars. Despite a $10 million reward, and the combined efforts of the FBI, Scotland Yard, INTERPOL, and the Canadian Mounted Police, the treasured art is never recovered. Jump to twenty-five years later. Paris, an ex-con classics professor and superbly gifted art forger, is passing the time at a self-storage facility he bought in out-of-the-way New Mexico to earn a living while figuring out what to do next with his life. When a suspicious out-of-towner arrives to check on his belongings, Paris' curiosity gets the best of him. He breaks into the man's storage unit only to find the stolen art now missing for a quarter of a century. With the $10 million in reward money under his belt, Paris sets off for Boston to fulfill his dream of building a classical museum of his own. In order to help the eccentric Lieutenant Lowell nab the illusive thief, Paris dives back into the world of obsession and deception which may send him back to prison. The Museum Heist, based on the real-life robbery of the famed Gardner Museum, is a fast-paced, wily whodunit filled with intrigue, romance and stimulating scholarship. Author Kameel Nasr, an international adventurer and art connoisseur, shines a penetrating light on the motives, habits, and sometimes less-than-noble intentions in the demi-monde of world-class art collecting. Along the way, he's created a wonderfully satisfying mystery novel for anyone interested in historical fiction. The Museum Heist takes you on a roller-coaster ride of suspense, a meticulous portrait of the underbelly of the art world at its highest echelons.
Download or read book The Gardner Heist written by Ulrich Boser and published by Harper Paperbacks. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990, two men broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and committed the largest art heist in history. They stole a dozen masterpieces, including one Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and five Degas. But after thousands of leads—and a $5 million reward—none of the paintings have been recovered. Worth as much as $500 million, the missing masterpieces have become one of the nation's most extraordinary unsolved mysteries. After the death of famed art detective Harold Smith, reporter Ulrich Boser decided to take up the case. Exploring Smith's unfinished leads, Boser travels deep into the art underworld and comes across a remarkable cast of characters, including a brilliant rock 'n' roll thief, a gangster who professes his innocence in rhyming verse, and the enigmatic late Boston heiress Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Boser becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and eventually uncovers startling new evidence about the identities of the thieves. A tale of art and greed, of obsession and loss, The Gardner Heist is as compelling as the stolen masterpieces themselves.
Download or read book Museum of the Missing written by Simon Houpt and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum written by Boston, Mass. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book takes you through the collection gallery by gallery, illuminating the art and installations in each room"--From preface.
Download or read book Stealing Rembrandts written by Anthony M. Amore and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg's Stealing Rembrandts is a spellbinding journey into the high-stakes world of art theft Today, art theft is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, exceeding $6 billion in losses to galleries and art collectors annually. And the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn are some of the most frequently targeted. In Stealing Rembrandts, art security expert Anthony M. Amore and award-winning investigative reporter Tom Mashberg reveal the actors behind the major Rembrandt heists in the last century. Through thefts around the world - from Stockholm to Boston, Worcester to Ohio - the authors track daring entries and escapes from the world's most renowned museums. There are robbers who coolly walk off with multimillion dollar paintings; self-styled art experts who fall in love with the Dutch master and desire to own his art at all costs; and international criminal masterminds who don't hesitate to resort to violence. They also show how museums are thwarted in their ability to pursue the thieves - even going so far as to conduct investigations on their own, far away from the maddening crowd of police intervention, sparing no expense to save the priceless masterpieces. Stealing Rembrandts is an exhilarating, one-of-a-kind look at the black market of art theft, and how it compromises some of the greatest treasures the world has ever known.
Download or read book Master Thieves written by Stephen Kurkjian and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive story of the greatest art theft in history. In a secret meeting in 1981, a low-level Boston thief gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was a big score waiting to happen. Though its collections included priceless artworks by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and others, its security was cheap, mismanaged, and out of date. And now, it seemed, the whole Boston criminal underworld knew it. Nearly a decade passed before the Museum was finally hit. But when it finally happened, the theft quickly became one of the most infamous art heists in history: thirteen works of art valued at up to 500 million, by some of the most famous artists in the world, were taken. The Boston FBI took control of the investigation, but twenty-five years later the case is still unsolved and the artwork is still missing. Stephen Kurkjian, one of the top investigative reporters in the country, has been working this case for over nearly twenty years. In Master Thieves, he sheds new light on some of the Gardner's most abiding mysteries. Why would someone steal these paintings, only to leave them hidden for twenty-five years? And why, if one of the top crime bosses in the city knew about this score in 1981, did the theft happen in 1990? What happened in those intervening years? And what might all this have to do with Boston's notorious gang wars of the 1980s? Kurkjian's reporting is already responsible for some of the biggest breaks in this story, including a meticulous reconstruction of what happened at the Museum that fateful night. Now Master Thieves will reveal the identities of those he believes plotted the heist, the motive for the crime, and the details that the FBI has refused to discuss. Taking you on a journey deep into the gangs of Boston, Kurkjian emerges with the most complete and compelling version of this story ever told.
Download or read book The Feather Thief written by Kirk Wallace Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
Download or read book The Art Forger written by B. A. Shapiro and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! “[A] highly entertaining literary thriller about fine art and foolish choices.” —Parade “[A] nimble mystery.” —The New York Times Book Review “Gripping.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece—the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years—may itself be a forgery. The Art Forger is a thrilling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.
Download or read book Gardner Museum Heist written by Michael Regan and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gardner Museum Heistexplores all sides of this famously unsolved crime. It discusses police investigations, conspiracy theories, and more related to the biggest art heist in world history. Features include a glossary, references, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
Download or read book Escape Book written by Stéphane Anquetil and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overcome challenges, solve puzzles, and uncover the true culprit in the fourth installment of the Escape Book series! What started as a typical family vacation takes a turn for the worse when you and your grandfather, a security guard at the local museum, find yourselves at the center of a serious scandal. It turns out that one of the museum’s masterpieces was stolen on the same night you and your grandfather were taking an after-hours tour—since you were the only two people there, you’re the prime suspects! To prove your innocence, you must now find the stolen masterpiece by observing, analyzing, and investigating like a real detective! Are you ready for an adventure?
Download or read book The City State of Boston written by Mark Peterson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the vaunted annals of America's founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary "city upon a hill" and the "cradle of liberty" for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clich s, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston's overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston's development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain's Stuart monarchs and how--through its bargain with slavery and ratification of the Constitution - it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States. Drawing from vast archives, and featuring unfamiliar alongside well-known figures, such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and John Adams, Peterson explores Boston's origins in sixteenth-century utopian ideals, its founding and expansion into the hinterland of New England, and the growth of its distinctive political economy, with ties to the West Indies and southern Europe. By the 1700s, Boston was at full strength, with wide Atlantic trading circuits and cultural ties, both within and beyond Britain's empire. After the cataclysmic Revolutionary War, "Bostoners" aimed to negotiate a relationship with the American confederation, but through the next century, the new United States unraveled Boston's regional reign. The fateful decision to ratify the Constitution undercut its power, as Southern planters and slave owners dominated national politics and corroded the city-state's vision of a common good for all. Peeling away the layers of myth surrounding a revered city, The City-State of Boston offers a startlingly fresh understanding of America's history.
Download or read book Stealing the Show written by John Barelli and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of forty years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum’s staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the world. For the first time, John Barelli shares his experiences of the crimes that occurred on his watch; the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork; the lessons he learned and shared with law enforcement professionals in the United States and abroad; the accidents and near misses; and a few mysteries that were sadly never solved. He takes readers behind the scenes at the Met, introduces curators and administrators, walks the empty corridors after hours, and shares what it’s like to get the call that an ancient masterpiece has gone missing. The Metropolitan Museum covers twelve acres in the heart of Manhattan and is filled with five thousand years of work by history’s great artists known and unknown: Goya, da Vinci, Rembrandt, Warhol, Pollack, Egyptian mummies, Babylonian treasures, Colonial crafts, and Greek vases. John and a small staff of security professionals housed within the Museum were responsible for all of it. Over the years, John helped make the museum the state-of-the-art facility it is today and created a legacy in art security for decades to come. Focusing on six thefts but filled with countless stories that span the late 1970s on into the 21st century, John opens the files on thefts, shows how museum personnel along with local and sometimes Federal Agents opened investigations and more often than not caught the thief. But of ultimate importance was the recovery of the artwork, including Celtic and Egyptian gold, French tapestries, Greek sculpture, and more. At the heart of this book there will always be art—those who love it and those who take it, two groups of people that are far from mutually exclusive.
Download or read book Stolen written by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and published by Benna Books. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stolen provides the context to the brazen heist that left the Gardner museum in search of its lost masterpieces.
Download or read book Escape Book written by Stéphane Anquetil and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overcome challenges, solve puzzles, and uncover the true culprit in the fourth installment of the Escape Book series! What started as a typical family vacation takes a turn for the worse when you and your grandfather, a security guard at the local museum, find yourselves at the center of a serious scandal. It turns out that one of the museum's masterpieces was stolen on the same night you and your grandfather were taking an after-hours tour--since you were the only two people there, you're the prime suspects! To prove your innocence, you must now find the stolen masterpiece by observing, analyzing, and investigating like a real detective! Are you ready for an adventure?
Download or read book Robbery File written by Amanda Howard and published by Bearport Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the December 2002 Van Gogh Museum robbery in Amsterdam and the forensic techniques used to catch the thieves.
Download or read book The Art of the Heist written by Myles J. Connor and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-04-10 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most beguiling criminal memoirs ever written….A rare gem of a book.” — T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to be one of Boston’s most notorious criminals? How did he survive a decades-long feud with the FBI? How did he escape one jail sentence with a fake gun carved out of soap? How did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt for early release from another sentence? The Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a life, the memoir of America’s most infamous art thief Myles Connor. Once a promising young rock musician, the son of a respected policeman, Myles Connor became one of Boston’s most infamous criminals—a legendary art thief with irresistible charm and a genius IQ whose approach to his chosen profession mixed brilliant tactical planning with stunning bravado, brazen disguises, audaciously elaborate con jobs, and even the broad-daylight grab-and-dash. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Boston’s Museum of Fine Art . . . no museum was off-limits. The fact that he was in jail at the time of the largest art theft in American history—the still-unsolved robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum—has not stopped the FBI from considering him a prime suspect. The Art of the Heist is Connor’s story—part confession, part thrill ride, and impossible to put down.
Download or read book Art Crime written by Stefan Koldehoff and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling, eye-popping look at true crime in the billion-dollar art world. The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe. Increased prices and globalization have introduced new levels of fraud and malfeasance into the art world--everything from "artnapping," in which an artwork is held hostage and only returned for a ransom, to forgery and tax fraud. However, the extent of the economic and cultural damage that results from criminality in the global art scene rarely comes to light. The stories of high-stakes, brazen art crimes told by art experts Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm are by turns thrilling, disturbing, and unbelievable (the imagination for using art to commit crimes seems boundless). The authors also provide a well-founded analysis of what needs to change in the art market and at museums. From the authors of False Pictures, Real Money (about the Beltracchi art forgery case), Art and Crime includes a chapter on art owned by Donald Trump. It is a thoroughly researched, explosive, and highly topical book that uncovers the extraordinary and multifarious thefts of art and cultural objects around the world.
