Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum extends deadline of $10m reward to help recover stolen artworks

Édouard Manet's 'Chez Tortoni' (c.1875), an oil on canvas that was among 13 pictures stolen from The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It is offering a $10m reward for information leading to their return. Image from: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The reward was set to run until the end of December but the museum has chosen to keep it open following a number of people making contact shortly before it was set to expire.

The works taken in the robbery on March 18, 1990 included Vermeer’s The Concert, Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black, Édouard Manet’s Chez Tortoni, and Edgar Degas’ Leaving the Paddock. It remains the largest art heist in history with the combined value of the works estimated at $500m.

The original reward offered was $1m but that was raised to $5m in 1997. The reward was then doubled to $10m in May 2017.

Rembrandt van Rijn, 'Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee' (1633), an oil on canvas that is among the pictures stolen in 1990 from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Image from: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.