Word: rembrandt
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...investigation into the affairs of two incarcerated career criminals who say they can return the stolen art in return for certain favors--including the $5 million reward. And one of those two cons, New England's most notorious art thief, who in 1974 brokered the return of a stolen Rembrandt, has told TIME that he once cased the Gardner with a man who, years later, arranged the heist without...
...real masterpieces and the other one maybe 50 to as many as 100," Connor says. He also knew that the Gardner had no theft insurance--the last thing a thief needs; no insurance company to sell a stolen painting back to. And he "had inside information" about an insured Rembrandt hanging on loan in the Museum of Fine Arts, an institution with serious "political clout" that would send up "a huge hue and cry" and therefore was "the much, much more desirable place" to send into hysterics...
Besides, Connor loved the piece--a splendid portrait of a woman often mistaken for Rembrandt's sister. "There are Rembrandts," says Connor, who could probably run Christie's and Sotheby's from inside the can, "and there are Rembrandts." Though it was valued at $1 million at the time, "it was actually worth" much more, he says, given the inflated art market...
Sure enough, the Rembrandt he lusted after was stolen. Connor, who once took several slugs in a blazing gun battle with a Boston police officer, says, "There isn't a museum in the world that's invulnerable" to a true professional. He won't say exactly how the Fine Arts caper came off, or even admit to the theft. But he arranged the return of the Rembrandt later that year--in exchange for avoiding prison after pleading guilty to the theft of Andrew Wyeth paintings from an estate in Maine...
...find the stolen paintings, "they could have chopped his fingers off one at a time," and Donati wouldn't have given up the goods. Connor thinks it's more likely he was killed in a battle between Boston's warring mob factions than because some crime boss wanted a Rembrandt on his wall...