Boston · 18 March 1990

Thirteen works, one night

Eighty-one minutes. Thirteen works. Five empty frames still on the wall.

Still missing

Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633. One of the thirteen. Still missing.

The facts

When: Early on Sunday, 18 March 1990
Where: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Taken: Thirteen works: three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet, five Degas works, a Flinck, a Chinese beaker and a bronze eagle
The thieves: Two men dressed as police officers. Never identified
Outcome: Unsolved. Nothing has been recovered

Early hours, 18 March
Two men in police uniforms ring the museum intercom. They say they are responding to a disturbance.¹
The door
The guard on duty breaks protocol and lets them in through the employee entrance. At their direction he steps away from the security desk.¹
The basement
The thieves handcuff him and a second guard and tie them up in the basement.^{1, 2}
The Dutch Room
They cut Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm and A Lady and Gentleman in Black from their frames. They take Vermeer's The Concert and Flinck's Landscape with an Obelisk out of their frames. They also take a Chinese bronze beaker and a small Rembrandt self-portrait etching.¹
The Short Gallery
They take five Degas works and a bronze eagle that topped a flag. From the Blue Room downstairs they take Manet's Chez Tortoni.^{1, 4}
2:45 am
The thieves leave, making two trips to their car. Eighty-one minutes after they came in.^{1, 2}
8:15 am
Police arrive. The two guards are still handcuffed.¹

The reward is ten million dollars. Nobody has collected it.

Five of the works were paintings taken from their frames. The museum repaired the five frames and hung them back on the walls as placeholders.²

The museum offers a $10 million reward. Wikipedia calls it the largest bounty ever offered by a private institution.^{3, 4}

The museum calls the investigation active and ongoing, and offers a further $100,000 for the eagle.¹

Wikipedia says the FBI valued the theft at $200 million in 1990 and $500 million by 2000.⁴

The thieves have never been identified. We do not repeat theories about who they were.
The reward figure comes from the museum's 2018 announcement and Wikipedia. Check the museum's page before quoting it.