Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 346: The Gardner Museum Heist Part 1

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Alex continues our unofficial BOSTON BEAN BONTH by taking Mathas and Jesse through a half-billion dollar art heist in Boston, Mass.CHILLUMINATI is a weekly comedy podcast hosted by Mike Martin, Jesse Cox and Alex Faciane. Hold on to your tin-foil hats and traverse the realms of the mysterious, supernatural, spooky and sometimes truly horrible - and your third eye will never be the same!Subscribe to our Patreon to support us and for extra content like full video episodes, weekly Minisodes, exclusive art, and more at http://patreon.com/CHILLUMINATIPODThank you to our sponsors:Zocdoc - Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to zocdoc.com/chill to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. HeroForge - http://www.heroforge.com Promo Code: CHILLPODMike Martin - http://www.youtube.com/@themoleculemindsetJesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecoxAlex Faciane - https://www.youtube.com/@StarWarsOldCanonBookClub/Editor: DeanCuttyProducer: Hilde @ https://bsky.app/profile/heksen.bsky.socialShow Art: Studio Melectro @ http://www.instagram.com/studio_melectroLogo Design: Shawn JPB @ https://twitter.com/JetpackBragginSources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft https://archive.is/mGrkn https://archive.is/2NSc8 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/TheftAudioWalkTranscript_FINAL_20200301.pdfhttps://g.co/arts/v519iztsXvdStwmJ7 https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/152-beacon-street-boston/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_(John_Singer_Sargent).jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Anders_Zorn_-_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_in_Venice_-_P17e10_-_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum.jpg https://g.co/arts/FZwqmoTaiG14pVsK6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Jaleo https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Mrs._Gardner_in_White_(1922)_by_John_Singer_Sargent.jpg https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/ISGM_visitor_MAP_20210105.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Rembrandt_Christ_in_the_Storm_on_the_Lake_of_Galilee.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lady_and_Gentleman_in_Black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_Obelisk#/media/File:Landscape_with_an_Obelisk,_Govaert_Flinck,_1638,_Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum,_Boston.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_(Vermeer)#/media/File:Vermeer_The_concert.JPGhttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/gardners-gu https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/styles/portrait_large/public/2025-03/P21n9_001_0.jpghttps://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10955 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14031 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14030 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14028 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/14029 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10749 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/sites/default/files/images/art/23/06/T17s1_a_003.JPG

Booster juice is going crazy for hazelnuts. No, not crazy. Nuts. Booster juice is going bananas for hazelnuts. I mean, there are bananas and smoothies, but that's not the point. Banana juice is booster for hazelnuts. What? Just stop.

Booster juice is going nuts for hazelnut. Introducing the nutty monkey smoothie, holy hazelnut assay bowl, and nutty booster ball. All made with rich, creamy hazelnut spread. Try them today. Only at booster juice. Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chulamati podcast. Episode 346, as always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined,

but my two wonderful co-hosts, as always, Alex and Jesse. I had enough names for you today. We're just going in nice and gentle, a smooth slide-in. My friends. You like that? I don't like how you said a smooth slide-in, but other than that, I'm here for it. You know, I'd rather have that. I'm all right.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Hey, okay. Good. Yeah. Good. What can I say? How many times do you think that you called us the Leon?

S. Kennedy of L.A. Probably like three, two or three. The funny part is it's in the song. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Oh, the... I was like, song. What are you talking about? What's such a you talking about?

I had no idea what he was... Guys, welcome to Chaluminati. Kind of, like, I don't know, like, the prank, the prank element of April Fool's Day is like a sort of like... unpleasantness in my opinion right like like nobody really loves the pranks right like some people i think love them in a way that like is like a little too much but other than that i feel like everybody just kind of their reaction to the pranks is kind of like uh okay yeah yeah yeah and so like yeah and so i didn't really think that we like as cheluminaity needed to do a prank for april full's day

so i don't think so like what we did was we just kind of of like kind of half did a prank and was like, hey, it's the Boston baked bean boy month on on the show. Just kidding. It's not. But it kind of is, but it kind of isn't. But it kind of is. But it kind of isn't.

So again, welcome back to like kind of Boston baked bean month. Kind of. That's, that's just how I feel. Like I didn't want to prank anybody. Right? Like, so I didn't do a prank. I just kind of. have made it actually a month about Boston.

Like we're kind of in a month about New England in Boston. Is that weird? Is it weird that we found ourselves here? No, I'm trying to follow you. Like, I think you guys thought just now that I was going to say that I'd prank to you, but I didn't. I didn't prank you. I just find pranks annoying and didn't want to prank the audience.

So I didn't prank them. And so we're in a kind of quasi-Boston baked bean bunth. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's a casual thing. Friday compared to LA month, which was very rigid, very L.A. But like, if you sit back and relax, you will notice that over the next few weeks, you're going to be seeing a bunch of shit about New England. That's just it.

That's all that's happening. Do we question, question, Mathis, hey, question. Yeah, man. For Mathis. Hey, bud. That's a going. How long is a month, usually? Ideally, somewhere between, on average, 30 days.

Right, right. It's the, it's the middle of. April and he said more weeks. Yeah, weeks and weeks. No. So we're going into May. Well, the thing about Alex is when he says month, he really means like quarter. I mean like season.

I mean like season. It's like a season. But like month being boy season. It's being season. Yeah. It's being. Okay. All right. We're like we're out of going, Alex. Everything's great. So far. Alex. We're out of horny alien mantis season. And we're into Boston

baked Beeson, I guess. Like I just like Bunt. It sounded better than Beeson. But, you know, we can say Bees. Boston baked I'm here for the Beeson Also It's the reason for the Beeson dude

Beezus is the reason for the Beeson Yeah obviously But also today as a like little break From tradition I'm not going to be promoting our Patreon Which you can find at patreon.com slash Tulenetti pod And wait a minute

Not only access to our extremely active discord But also weekly bonus content With every episode I'm not going to be promoting that today Instead I'm going to tell you guys about some other cool stuff you can do that has to do with the Chulamani. Firstly, we constantly read listener stories here on the show. Not just in the listener stories episodes, but also sometimes like in a minisode here or there,

one of us will read a listener story or in other strange types of episodes, which I've invented over the years. Sometimes a listener story comes in here or there. Those things are all pulled from our completely free Reddit at R slash Chulametti pod. It's a great subreddit. All three of us, I would. would say frequent this Reddit. I would say all of us are on this Reddit fairly regularly. And it's also a great place to get all of our like the playlists that we post on our official

Spotify. Merch links if you want to buy the merch where, you know, anything like that. And any other kind of weird stuff where we're going to like put a quiz out there or like give the audience something to respond to, it's always going to be on the Reddit. Go on the Reddit. Our slash Shilluminati pod. It's run by our Bogwitch and Manchild Rangler Hilda, who also happens to run our social media, which brings me to my second point. We're not just on Reddit.

We're also on Blue Sky and Instagram. Oh yeah, and TikTok too. Don't forget TikTok. Don't forget Twitter. We're there. Don't go on there, but we're there if you're already there. And we actually pay Hilda to run our social media, which is, which means that it is the place. unless again, I'm not promoting it,

but unless you go to patreon.com slash shitemone pod and get every single episode already with full video. Like we're recording video right now while I'm talking. And every episode has it on Patreon. But outside of that, which I'm not promoting. Patreon. Of course not. Don't. Yeah. Outside of that, social media is the place where you're going to get free video clips of funny bits from this show.

And also like genuinely interesting bits of trivia. from the show. Also, all with video, all completely free. And that's at cheluminatipod.fm on blue sky that you can go to and at Chulamaddypod on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter, I think. All of those. Pick one, pick all of them. Just go follow us because if you're not, that is yet another way to support your favorite silly mystery, conspiracy, paranormal showboys besides going to Patreon.com slash chilmanity pod, of course. And you can still go there. if you want, but I'm not promoting that today, so I won't. Anyway, clock it, Alex.

Good job, clock it. Thank you so much to Zoc Doc for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. You know, here's something I noticed. Health issues have absolutely no respect for my schedule. And that's really annoying. I've tried to sit them down and tell them you need to have respect for my schedule and the health issues. Ignore me.

They don't wait for business hours. They don't care, that I have a full calendar of stuff. They just show up whatever they feel like it. Like when you cut your finger, making a midnight snack, which I may or may have done multiple times, or you tweak your back in some completely unremarkable way, like waking up at 40 years old, and now you just can't stand straight. Or it's 3 a.m. and you're deep in a symptom search spiral convinced that whatever this weird tingle in my left foot toe is, it's definitely serious. The good news is that with Zoc Doc,

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Appointments typically happen within 24 to 72 hours and you can even grab same day slots. If I needed to find a doctor right now, this is literally what I use. Stop putting off those doctor appointments and go to Zocdoc.com slash chill to find an instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Zocdoc dot com slash chill. Zocdoc.com slash chill. Thanks again to Zococ for sponsoring this episode. Welcome to another episode of the show. Today is an Alex episode in that I have written it for you.

But sadly, my mysteriousness is currently being dispensed elsewhere. And the only true trick of strangeness I really have for you this week is simply that today's episode is part one of a two-parter, which of course on its own is not really that odd at all. But what makes this week's episode kind of special-ish is that it's kind of like a Wikipedia-powered background primer background info pamphlet that you need to know to understand a much more twisty-turning episode that is like the answer, the possible answer to a mystery question which we're going to be asking today. Right. Like today you're going to get like I went on Wikipedia. I'm going to tell you what happened.

I got a bunch of articles. We're going to get a bunch of background on the people and things involved in this. And then next week, like a crazy thing is going to unfurl. But you're going to know what I'm talking about already because I already went over it today. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, Matthew. What's up, man? Hey. What's up, dude? You know, just sitting here listening to Alex. Yeah. You're okay? Yeah.

You're following along? I think so, if not. I think he's going to read us a Wikipedia page. Sorry, hey, guys. What are you doing here? Sorry, I just came in. I just, I saw the light was on here. No, no, no, hang on.

I was just letting Jesse hit the pipe real quick before we started this all. Are you sure? I don't think I've literally ever seen him hit a pipe. Oh, okay. Oh, my God. I'm going to drive dog with the K-9 units here. He knew. He knew.

He's not legal. We's not legal. That's all we're going to do today. It's like a light sort of background episode. that you need to hear so that next week you can follow along with everything we're talking about think of today's episode is like part point five and next week's squeak will is where we're going to like go that you know it's going to go to just call part one and two yeah okay that's good uh no no this is chapter six part four section three the revengeering

hey that's a good game is everybody subscribe to the instagram and the blue sky now and the TikTok now and the Twitter now? Did you join the subred? Alex, I'm going to blow your mind. They probably are audio skipping and they probably just cut to this point where they're like talking about it. They've been skipping forward for like 10 minutes. They've caught up and they're like, I don't know what's going on. All right. So

for then, for the non-skippers, we're going to announce some new merch next week. So how about that? That's good. That's good. That was great. Yeah. The non-skippers are going to love that. And they're going to all follow us on all our socials. Yep. Guys, we know you're a non-skipper. Yep. This of course is the story of the

1990, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Art Heist. And it begins 186 years ago, almost to the day. Oh, my God. 1990 was so long ago, dude. I feel so old. Isabella Stewart was born on April 14th, 1940. So literally, like, that was yesterday, as of this recording, 186 years ago, to a wealthy New York City linen merchant called David Stewart.

And his wife Adelia Smith, who raised. raised her as like the mid-1800s version of like a fancy little rich girl in like Manhattan. Manhattan looked like Wild Wild West, the TV show at the time, but it still was Manhattan. And even though it was early, the age of like wealthy, interesting socialites was already like well upon us. It had evolved out of like a sort of like gentlemanly thing to now just like society in general was just kind of like, oh, a show. show that we put on using ourselves. Like, it's like the pre,

the pre-cletal to like branding. You know what I mean? Like, Jesse would thrive in like this era. As a rakeish, as a rakeish Victorian man. Oh my God. He would,

he would be, he'd run the block of wherever he lived. Somewhere, like, I don't know the rules of time travel. I'd be a begging poor man on the streets and Jesse would be top-handed. Oh,

I have like a curly, waxed up mustache. He would. And I'd be selling all the oil, snake and otherwise. Yeah. You think red hair was even more rare back then? You're in a photo somewhere.

Jesse's Immortals, what we will learn by the end of this. You've been shined in. I told people, when you meet me, I suck your energy. They think it's hilarious. Suck your energy, bro. You said that like Daniel Plainview. I suck your energy. She's like a little girl who's going to become part of that, like, socialite society.

That's crazy. and you got to be interested. She's going to become a little woman. Yeah, you got to have prospects. You got to have like things going on, things to talk about, right? And she would need to be fully prepared to have that lifestyle.

So to cultivate an interest in the arts and other intellectual pursuits for their young daughter, amazingly in the 1800s, even though she was eight years older than Bell Star, this person that I'm talking about right now. Like that, that was also unfolding at the same time for other women, was people like Bell Star in their life.

This woman was like in, from ages 5 to 15, she attended like a girls academy for the study of French and Italian languages, art, music, and dance. Which is funny because I feel like today most rich dudes would rather their girlfriend be like dumb as fuck than have anything going on in their heads, which is, you know, a change in society that, you know, Sometimes you can't expect by looking at history. I just don't, man.

Don't you want to like somebody you can sit down next to on the couch and converse with? I do. Like, isn't that? Some people I think want like something between like an Uber Eats person and like a sex toy. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, they always look at women as people or as equals. Yeah.

I want a woman to break me. Is that? Is that on the menu? That's like. I think I've known this about you for a long time. I think like some sort of big. Barbarian woman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think you got to pay extra for that. But that's why we have the $10,000. Yeah, that's why you're, who'd your romance in Baldur's Gate 3, Jesse? Oh, Carlach, please. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's exactly. She and I ran through the gates of hell

and murdered demons for eternity. Right or die. I ended up the same. I ended up the same way. Who's your favorite character from Resident Evil Village? From Resident Evil Village? Fucking. Fucking, the, what's his name?

Hammerman. I thought you guys were going to say the big lady. Anyway. Yeah, I mean, she's no comment. On it, look, I'll be real. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you something. Look, big lady, great. But three fly girls better.

Oh, that's right. That's right. Three vampires who actually flies and girls from in living color. In living color. You know what? Same vibe. Yes. Anyway, the only reason she didn't stay in this like girls academy for assassins or

whatever it was past the age of 15 was because. was because... The red room. Yeah, when she turned 16, her whole family decided to, like, go to Paris, where in a strange reversal of, like, every child in Santa Monica

and the various playa on Marina del Reyes of Southern California, she was enrolled in a French school where children sometimes spoke English, which is the opposite of how it is here. And while there, for the very first time, she encountered members of the Gardner family, who was another bunch of, like,

cultured rich people, except instead of New York. They were from Boston. And she particularly made friends with Julia Gardner, who was a classmate who was close to her in age. And they just were like, oh, are you a rich girl? And, oh, me too. Oh, let's hang out and talk about a rich girl. Rich people laugh at the paws together.

It's so fun. Yeah. And the next year when she was, what that's not what they were doing. That's the thing that's crazy. When she was 17, she first traveled to Italy since she was also raised. with quite a religious background, as a lot of people had at this time. You know, superficially or not,

like, I don't know how religious she was on a personal level, but she definitely had the knowledge. So this was like a crazy art pilgrimage, this trip to Europe for her. And getting to see all these like real deal period churches and like legendary art pieces, like that you could only read about in books.

Like there's no really like great photography that can like, convey a painting across the ocean yet. So this is her chance to go see like, you know, the ceiling of the fucking Sistine Chapel shit like that. And so it was fucking crazy of her. And I think most specifically her biggest mind blow came when she visited the current site of the Museo Poldi Pizzoli, which actually opened after World War II as a museum.

But at the time was the family palazzo, which has. How's the collection of Renaissance art collector, Jean Giacomo Poldi Pazoli and his mother Rosa Tril, Trevuzio. And here's a link. This is going to be in the show notes. There's a lot of show notes today, guys. This link's going to be in the show notes. This is a, like, sort of look at the entryway of this museum,

and you can kind of click around and see what kind of stuff's in the museum. This is like one of those Google Arts and Culture things. It's really cool. It's immediately my home. I'm open things up, and you just have the statue of cherubs on this, like, the staircase. The staircase.

With like, yeah, the staircase. And my immediate feeling is a shit it's haunted. Yeah. Risen and late,

dude. You know what? That is a vibe. Yes. Yeah. Is that not the vibe of this red staircase?

This like warm orange, everything. I'm just like, oh, this is a ghost here. Yeah. Well, you know what?

Mark this because actually that's like a great, we'll do a, we'll do like a fun contrast. So this is the Museo Polde Pazone. This is a art collection, which sounds like a delicious dish of food.

I was going to say, it sounds like something I'd order. Yeah, I know right. Paul de Pazoli, please. Pazole is like, Posovole is delicious, but Pezzoli is different. But this family, they're part of an old military family dates back to the Middle Ages. They've been collecting famous works in their family home for many years, Renaissance art.

But maybe 10 years before Isabella arrives, around 1846 or so, they start to like realize what they want to do with it. And they start to redecorate the place to be centered around presenting the, artwork, right, instead of it being a house. Like, mostly they're, like, turning it into, like, a place to install art for viewing, right? And most key for Isabella's purposes also, the decor in the house, they ceased to have, like, unified decor in the house and tended toward individual rooms that were, like, decorated in various styles that would, like, match a theme.

Oh, so, like, little thematic rooms. You know what? I've always wanted to do that. Yes. But I feel like you have to have a ton of money to pull that off. Well, you just need to really what you, well, that too. But like the art that to curate into those into those configurations is the thing that's really. Yeah. The thing that was attractive to Isabello's, the idea that these people were buying this stuff and arranging it and coming up with like narratives and like thematic reasons. Like museums actually like if you look into the history of museums are really quite interesting things, right? like before we had like consensus fact and before we had like uh you know uh like a like a sort of

like way that all the global academics could like confirm things with each other like museums were just kind of like cool shit that we found come look at it and like who's the cool guy that you can get that you can pay because there's no cynicism with rich people and money at this time this was the time when rich people were also paying all the great artists to just like make shit because they're awesome right uh patreon.com slash chlmoney pond and like you know because of that you get the sort of like shape of museums that we have today is just sort of like a formalized version of the eccentricity of extremely cultured rich people yeah i mean most big museums the art that's there is lent to them

because it's safer to have it at a museum than in your home. Right. And so the ritual just like, they'll do the same thing. They'll be like, yes, I had Goop Master 69, famous street artist, paint me this thing. But it's worth a million dollars. So I'm not going to keep it at home.

I'll lend it to this thing. So the public gets to see it, but I get it safe there because security and this and that and all that. Yeah. I was watching how to with John Wilson on HBO, which if you have not watched that, Chaluminati listener, I have a theory that if you vibe with my mind, you will like that show. But they're doing like some kind of like,

it was about like keeping stains off of shit or something was like the topic that he like started with. And he ended up finding like people who would like buy these like expensive pieces of art and then just store it and then do like a print and like hanging in their house. you got to have you got to have triples dude like why do you why even own it all right anyway that's like that's like in a weird to the gaming collector analogy it's like buying a copy an n64 copy in box complete sealed and then buying a repo cart yeah but if but it's but it's like that if the if there was only one of the real game which is why it's weird like that's why it's weird because it seems like the whole thing is about having copies right like having a copy

if you're going to consume it as a Johnny person, unless you're going to own it. I don't know. Anyway, anyway. This sort of concept of viewing and presenting art in this way is what gave Isabella her life's dream and purpose. Okay. And after she left that place,

she was always known to say that one day, if she ever inherited a serious amount of money herself, that she would make something just like this and open it to the public for people to enjoy. think about this. This is what a person who said, if I get rich, I'm going to like just make culture better.

That's crazy. Would be nice. I mean, there used to be a time where the ultra wealthy would not hoard their wealth. They would like... Spend it.

They would genuinely be still the same assholes the ultra wealthy always are, but they were smart enough to be like, we should build a few museums and parks and shit that the public can use. so they won't come kill us. You know what I mean?

They're like, if we give back in a gesture, like a wing to a hospital, people won't come murder me. I know you know this, I know you know this, Jesse, because you're a history guy.

And same with you, Alex, but like for the listener, that literally that, having rich people do that, took the gilded age, coming to an end with people basically threatening

to just like revolt. And we're starting to see, a lot of warehouses, mysteriously catching on fire recently. That's not far from here. That's what I'm saying. It's crazy like how seven total so far? Because the wealth disparity now is worse.

Yes. Then the Gilded Age is worse than when the French revolution happened by it's like the worst it's ever been and they're removing things. So yeah, this is just what happens when the wealthy realize, oh, they're going to kill us. I mean, and you can see people like, you know, the Rockefellers and Carnegie. And like all these guys were just like, we should really invest in not being murder. so let's just build libraries and bridges and parks and like people are like lovely and they got something out of it because they got to go to the libraries and the bridges and the parks and it had

their name all over it and it felt great instead now people put their name on stuff and it's like I didn't earn it or deserve it but my name's going there yeah off and you're like I will burn that building down like how dare you didn't Sam Altman in a recent interview say maybe people should have 30 hour work weeks in universal health care if they work their 30 hour work weeks Didn't that recently come out in an interview? Maybe. It's a good start, but let's keep pushing that negotiation a little further, shall we? Yeah.

Yeah. Dude, let's just join the EU. I'm down. I'm down. Anyway, sidebar to that conversation. Is it wild of me to imagine that people didn't get nearly as distracted by shit as they do today also? I mean there was less to get distracted by.

But also I just mean like reinventing themselves and shit way less. Like this lady went on a trip when she was in basically high school and was like, one day, I will get rich and I will make a museum for all people. And then like, obviously I'm going to tell you that's exactly what she just did. Right. And like to me, like the fact that like a kid had that dream and followed through on it through their entire life, I feel like that doesn't happen anymore because you keep having to like reinvent yourself all the time to like fit in with culture. nowadays. She's also rich. Yeah.

I was not to say. She's also she has the money to be like, I can be whatever I want. That's the other fucking thing. Like, was it common in the 19th century in America for women to imagine that they might be in charge of a shitload of money one day? Or is that like some woke ass trait of her family? Or is that just like, were there like that type of liberal at the time? Oh, for sure.

But they were like probably in the same categories, which. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just weird. It's just weird in the 19th century that this lady is like 17 years old and just like one day when I may be rich and not like one day when my husband may be rich. You know what I mean? I just yeah. I see what you're saying.

I do wonder too because like, you know, I wonder how common it was to more of the poor or middle class or whatever you will call it back then. Because like for today, I do wonder if like people do have these dreams, but they don't go through with it because it's fucking impossible like money wise. If they don't have the money to follow through on their dreams, whatever their dreams may be, then they have to readjust. They have to reevaluate once they turn 20 or 30. And there is no path to a wealth level that allows them whatever their childhood dream was. Right. Like then, because I, I'm childhood dreams for me never happened because just money.

Cause it's like, I would love to do that. But I need to be a hundred millionaire like to even like even think about being able to develop a game or something with like, you know, a studio. Yeah. because there's so much brutality that must occur and you're so disadvantaged every turn. But yeah, I guess like at this time there's probably like shitloads of optimism. And it just kept on going like through, well, we had that like dip for like 20 years. And then we come back because we, oh my God, luckily we're like a geographically isolated superpower that defeated Hitler. And we're 20 years old.

Then we are, we have a driver's license now. You know, like, yeah. I feel like the idea of being an American who's rich at this time just felt. like the world was your oyster maybe and maybe even the it was even the women felt it you know maybe i mean american this time also had a wealth tax right right right like we before regan came in and ruined all that shit like there is a wealth tax on like you know however many millions you were making anything after that it was literally the law that rich people had to help you and they fought to not in the country boomed because of it yeah exactly we had the best years of our of our lives

One of the biggest mistakes of my life was trying to major in history and learning too much. Oh, man. Too educated in the history or history of America. No comment. I specifically took, I specifically took U.S. history. It was like my special interest. And man, it's made me sadder as like time is going on. What do you mean?

Greatest nation on earth. Shut up. I was going to say, what do you think about history, Jesse? No comment. Isabella's, I mean, she just was like really interesting. And I just wonder if this is how all rich women. were, it's just, she's so like, she's so like actualized and like self-motivated. And it's like really awesome to me. And I just like, I can't, I don't understand if she's like,

an anomaly. Yeah. Or if she's like, like, like, just like, like how these people were. Was it just like a really intellectual, woke ass golden age time for these people? I think maybe it's probably more about her parents and what their desires were for her. Because it seems like, they were pretty much follow your heart dear. But I know a lot of parents would be like, I mean, you know, because like if you're rich, then and if, is she like an only child? Because if she's an only child, then I can see her parents being more like,

do what you do, baby girl, compared to if she's like the fifth child and, you know, the one girl or maybe there's like six girls, you know what I mean? All that factors in to, I think, what her parents would have wanted for her. Right. I don't think she has any siblings. If she's a single child, then she, I can see how they'd be like, you're our kid. Because like if you're, maybe that's what it is when you're rich at this time. Yeah. There's like four sisters.

You're probably in the we're going to marry you off and try to get richer range. You know, like we'll marry into another family. But if you're the one girl, they're going to be like, no, no, no, no. You are, you have our last name. You are like, you are going to carry on our legacy. don't let some like schlub ruin it for our family like that kind of thing yeah i mean yeah i don't see any sort of mention of any siblings like she has a grand niece and her spouse and her parents uh i'm not her biographer um of course yeah like this i'm i'm telling you this as background

i'm telling you this as background to a heist yeah yeah the stuff that is interesting it's interesting questions that kind of arise out of it yeah the stuff that i did Reed is like, she just seems really interesting. And so I was just kind of fascinated by where she fit into the tapestry of things at the time. But anyway, she's 18. Her family returns to New York because they probably didn't like get rid of their house or anything. I think they just like had a place in Paris for a while. Eventually her friend from school in Paris, who's also back in America, Julia Gardner, invites her down to Boston to hang and shoot the shit and talk about like fucking books and philosophy or whatever the fuck these girls were talking about.

But what she actually ended up doing was meeting Julia's older brother Jack, who was actually one of the most eligible bachelors in Boston. And shortly thereafter, they get together, which almost two years later leads to them getting married at Isabella's family church, which is Grace Church on Broadway in Manhattan, still there. And then Isabella's father, who was also insanely rich, remember, it's not just the gardeners who are rich. Isabella Stewart, the Stewart family is also rich. He gave them a house at 152 Beacon Street in Boston, which they tried to start a family in. It's like one of those big, beautiful, sort of like townhouse-looking things that looks like an entire apartment building, but it's like an old house. And if you don't know exactly what I mean, there's an article about it in the show notes that you guys can read. But if you guys want to click on it, now you can see like a picture of it and see what the vibe was. Huge fucking house.

Oh yeah, this is this huge, huge house. Holy crap. It's just, wow. It looks like two towers, the squishing a house in the middle. It's crazy. It's three stories. It'd probably be like a duplex now or some nonsense or apartments.

At least. Yeah. It's also known as Green Hill. Yeah. Dude, she also is Dr. Robotnik. Yeah. Their first son they had was born in 1863. And he died of pneumonia before he was two years old.

And then a year later. her in 1866. She tried again, and Isabella suffered such a catastrophic miscarriage that her doctors told her that she was no longer going to be able to have children, which was devastating to her. And shortly thereafter, coincidentally, her best friend slash sister-in-law unexpectedly passed away. Basically, like, everything she thought was going to happen wasn't going to happen, and her best friend died.

And so she just, like, got sued. depressed for a fucking year and didn't do shit for a year. Damn. However, luckily, she was still super fucking rich. And so after seeing several doctors, they loaded her on a boat back to Europe on a literal stretcher along with her husband, Jack. And for a year, though they mostly stayed around Paris, they also went around to parts of Russia, parts of Scandinavia.

And she, like, found herself and Epre loved and started literally started scrapbooking. I kid you not. And wouldn't you know it eventually with no responsibilities and just being on permanent vacation in Europe for a year, she started to feel much better. And when she came back to New York in 1868, she quickly became one of the city's hottest, most well-known, most interesting socialites. And just like her childhood at French finishing school dictated, her reputation preceded her pretty much everywhere she went from then on in her life. Pretty crazy. A few years later, now at the top of her game, Isabella and Jack take another victory lap through Paris in 1874. And miraculously, but also kind of like fortunately, it's not, I don't want to say miraculously. It's like tragic, miracle, good for some, bad for others.

In 1875, Jack's brother Joseph randomly dies out of nowhere and leaves behind three young boys who Isabella eagerly adopts, which fulfills her desire for children, right? She's like, I will take care of these boys as if they were my own. I will do everything for them. And so it's 1875 for a decade about she dedicates her lives to raising these boys who are like already, you know, pretty, they're all a few years old. And so they all, she gets them to manhood, gives them good lives, sets them up.

She swears that, you know, they're all going to. turn out well and they're all sort of like independent people. So the moment they're able to get out of the house and she's on her own again, boom, motherhood done. Her and Jack go back on the road immediately like never lost the lust for travel, travel all around the globe and the name of art across more than like a dozen trips adds up to a total of 10 years abroad. Because I guess when rich people travel in the 1800s, they just like, where are we staying for four months, you know, like whatever, like, which honestly sounds fucking great, but somewhere in that decade on the road, not exactly sure when they begin buying art just for the joy of it and for

having fun with it. And if you want to see here is a painting of Isabella by the famous artist John Singer Sargent from 1888. You'll be able to see this in the show notes. There's a painting of her so you can kind of see what her vibe was around this time because this is her. Very realistic painting actually. That's crazy. In the late 1800s of her like sort of post children doing her thing around the world. She seems like chill.

I don't know. There's a good, I like this painting. Yeah, it's a very, very good painting. Yeah, this painting is on display at the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum. When her father died and she inherited $1.75 million out of nowhere. He had like a stroke. This was in 1891. So 1.75 million

in 1891. money. That's like $60 million today. And it went from like flights of fancy art collecting to like serious art collecting. And she kind of like was like, okay, I have a European focus now. I'm like going to collect European art. She still dabbled in Egyptian, still dabbled in Chinese and Turkish. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. But that's what happens now. She like in the late 1880s into the early in 1890, she matures into this sort of like world traveler, art collector wizard person. And here's another painting of her by another famous painter, the Swedish artist Anders Zorn. This is a picture of her in Venice six years later.

And in the first painting, she's very like low-key and she's wearing a black dress. And in this painting, she has like a big, huge piece of jewelry on and it's late. And she's standing on the balcony and she's lit from the front. and she looks like she's been partying and that she's like... What year was this? The painting also feels more ethereal than the other one. Yes, 1894. It has such like a 1920s flapper vibe to it.

Right? Yeah, yeah. Because she's so ahead of her time, honestly, genuinely. Probably. She's like worldly. And suddenly, by the turn of the century, suddenly the gardeners are some of the foremost collectors of art in the entire world. They've accumulated a good mix of what Wikipedia described.

as quote, primarily paintings and sculpture, but also tapestries, photographs, silver, ceramics, and manuscripts and architectural elements such as doors, stained glass, and mantle pieces. So she's got a huge kind of crazy collection of shit at this point. And around the same time as this is all popping off on all cylinders, in 1896 now, the gardener start to realize that the enlargement they'd made to their home on Beacon Street would not be enough to literally fit all this shit in it. but they didn't know what to do about it and they were kind of dragging their feet

because they had like all their normal, worldly concerns to worry about as well. But then two years later in 1898, Jack Gardner, her husband, dies of a stroke out of nowhere in December right before Christmas. And it galvanizes her to like finally try

and make her dream of this like beautiful place where the public could view her collection. She wanted to make it come true. So she purchased land in the like swampy area of Boston that's called the Fenway and hired the architect Willard T. Sears of the studio Cummings and Sears. Wait a minute. Dude, I've been to her, I've been to this place.

You've been to the museum. In Boston. Yeah. This is a, this is a very famous museum. Like almost five, before COVID, like 2019, 2018, I walked over there and went in and like looked around the, Yo, I did, none of this clicked until right now. Boom, there you go. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to look at it right now, actually.

Basically, he was like a significant, like, local Gothic and Renaissance Revival architect. And he did a lot of stuff around Boston. And so he basically was like, she used me as her hands to, like, kind of design exactly the things she wanted to design. And basically, it's like a big square building centered around this big open courtyard. and you can't really tell what it looks like from from the inside, like on the inside, from the outside. But if you look at this, crazy. It's like a glass covered courtyard.

And it's like it's so cool. It looks like it's from 500 years ago in Europe. But it's like, you know, from the turn of the century. Yeah. So you walk like it's, there's a beautiful outside garden area. And then this is the interior. So when you walk in, the first floor literally is this courtyard. And then there's these different areas you can go look at.

around the outside. And then the rest of it is you go up the second, third, fourth. And there are all these different wings of art. Yeah, this place was awesome, dude. Yeah. And like, this has blown me away that I've been here before. Yeah. And it's very like, like very much like the, what's it called?

The British Museum in London that it's like of the old tradition of museums that I was talking about earlier, like where you can just kind of like stuff is just sort of like arranged together. Like obviously the British Museum now is like a modern museum and has a lot of areas where a lot of the stuff that the United Kingdom has stolen from various countries

over the years that they used to like... You mean liberated. Right. And like just like like now it's like a much more like a modern museum but there's one wing of it that's like a big room that's just stuff sort of clumped together in like

slightly logical ways. And that's That's very much the vibe of the Gardner Museum. And it's very surprising. It's very much like a treasure on the inside from the outside. Like you wouldn't, if you didn't know it was a museum, you wouldn't suspect it looked like that. Originally, the first floor was meant to contain like a large music room, which spilled up onto the second floor on one side with most of the second floor and the third floor, primarily intended to be galleries.

But eventually, thanks to the giant painting El Haleo, by. John Singer-Sargent, the same guy who did several paintings of Isabella herself. The room was split. And now there's paintings down on the first floor, too. Look at how big this painting is. El-Haleo. I'm going to send, you'll be able to see it in the show notes. This thing is huge.

It's 93 inches by 138 inches. Yeah. It's beautiful, though. It's crazy. Beautiful painting. The lighting in this painting is unbelievable. Yeah, it's really well done. Like, this would be so striking to see in real life.

at that size. Like a movie poster from a movie theater is 30 by 40 inches. Just so you guys know. And for you people in Europe, that's 230 centimeters, 237 centimeters by 352 centimeters. That's a, that's a big boy.

Yeah. And eventually what was left was an exquisitely and privately curated and installed collection, which represents the viewpoint of Isabella Stuart Gardner herself as a student of art and culture, and which fully fulfilled the dream that she'd held since she was a little girl in Italy over 25 years earlier.

Eventually, on January 1st, 1903, her residence at Fenway Court held its private opening, celebrated by a performance from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and including refreshments like champagne and donuts. Some dunkin donuts? Yeah, and I do call it her residence because she lived up on the fourth floor

of this museum for the rest of her life until she died. Man, though, that's got to be so awesome. That would be so sick to live on top of the museum of like your passion that you've seen all this stuff. It's cool as shit. Yeah. It's extremely eccentric behavior, but I love it. As somebody who has a giant collection right behind him in frame right now.

Same. Extremely, extremely, uh, hilarious that this happened in such a, I don't know. This is like so legit to me. I don't know.

So that happened. She lived up there a few months later. it opens to the public. In 1919, Isabella Stewart Gardner, the New England art wizard in her magically curated castle museum, she plucked straight from her own dreams, had the first of several strokes that she would have over the next five years. And on July 17th, 1924, at the age of 84, she eventually passed away on the premises and was buried in the Gardner family tomb at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge, Mass. I believe that's one place. I don't know enough about Massachusetts to tell you about Watertown and Cambridge.

Do you know about that? I know the little Cambridge. I'm not super familiar, though. It says it's in Watertown and Cambridge. Yeah. So maybe they're next to each other and it spans both. Or is it a place called Watertown in Cambridge? Is Watertown is a city in Middles?

No, Watertown is a city in Middlesex County. It's not Cambridge. Don't know why it's called Watertown. It's in Watertown and Cambridge. If you go to Melbourne. Maybe it's like a section like, oh, that's Watertown. It's Watertown. I don't know.

Maybe if you're from that part of Massachusetts, you can tell me. Mathis is from New England, but he's from Providence. He's not from Watertown. I lived in Rhode Island most of my life. Yeah. Here's a painting of her also in her fourth floor home in 1922, two years before she died by John Singer-Sargeon again. This was after she'd had some of her strokes. but this is like her vibe as an older woman.

Like I said, very eccentric, sort of wizardy. Very wizardy. You know what the vibe is? Brando and Dr. Moreau. Yes, yes. She looks like the negative of a Benegeshret also. She looks like... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's a quote about her legacy. Who wants to read it? During Gardner's lifetime, she welcomed artists, performers, and scholars to Fenway Court to draw inspiration from the rich collection and dazzling Venetian setting, including John Singer, Sergeant, Charles Martin Loughler, and Ruth St. Denis, among others.

Gardner also occasionally hosted artists' exhibitions within Fenway Court, including one of Anna Coleman Ladd. Today, the museum's contemporary artist-in-residence program, courtyard garden displays, concerts, and innovative education programs continue Isabella Gardner's legacy. Yeah.

Artist in residence is like they live there? Yeah, yeah. That's actually like a more recent thing, but it's very much in the spirit of like how she wanted to do things where it's very much about not just, you know, buying and owning the art, but curating it and interacting with it and having it be created and have it be alive. You know, very cool. Upon her death, a $1 million endowment was created to support the museum and included

the stipulation that her art collection should be placed on exhibition permanently, quote, for the education and enjoyment of the public forever. And if anybody ever tries to start, change anything, she'd like, all of it gets like donated and sold or something like that. It's like, it's like a fail say. There's no way to like get this art anywhere besides for the public. That's cool. She also appointed her secretary Morris Carter, who had also been the librarian at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to be the museum's first director. And they too lived up in that residence on the fourth.

floor, just like, just like Isabella did. And indeed, so did every subsequent director, who each worked to catalog the collection, write books, do biography of Isabella, start scholarly publications, like we said, the artist and reticist presidency program, until Anne Hawley became the director in 1989, because by then we're like basically in the modern day and she declined to live there because it's kind of a weird thing kind of an eccentric thing to do to live inside of a museum but she she was a legendary

director of the museum and her legacy she just stepped down in 2015 that director and Holly but it was just within six months of her originally taking that position in September of 18 1989 that the events which made this episode worth doing occurred

And now that you know about this dope museum and the extremely interesting and eccentric lady who created it, let us get into the timeline of the heist which occurred here in early 1990, in which 13 masterpieces valued together at over $600 million were lost, including irreplaceable works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Manet, and DeGas, and which, with the help of Anne Hawley herself, eventually resulted in the in reclassification of art theft as a federal crime and which increased the statute of limitations on such things from five to 15 years. Thanks to Senator Ted Kennedy, weirdly. One night in early March of 1990, about two weeks before the heist, a security guard at the Gardener Museum saw a young guy outside the museum door being assaulted by some other older looking dudes on his security feed. That was just me getting beat that day. Yeah. Seconds later. That was four. It was hard on the streets. You were out there. You should be out at night if you're four. I was planning my own art heist. I heard there was a really sick painting of Elmo in there and I was going to have it.

I have some questions for you because seconds later, the guard heard banging on the museum door, presumably from the guy outside getting his ass kicked, begging to be let inside. But the guards are not supposed to let anyone inside the museum overnight for any reason. So he told the guy through the door that he would call the cops for him instead and the cops were on the way. But what's weird is, after that, I don't like the cops. Before the cops show up, the guard then watches all the guys,

including the guy that was getting his ass kicked, all jump into a single car together and drive off. Damn. So I have some questions for you, Mathis. All right, I was a mastermind behind it all. I had them beat me up to sell it. Yeah. And once they were going to let me in,

I was going to take the knife out of the diaper I was wearing and shank them. This is like, you're like doing some like stewy like this is a boss baby right there. Boss baby was based on me. Baby geniuses, dude. So, so that happened. Look who's talking to. So is that.

So dude. So that happened in early March. Um, but later that month on March 18th, 1990, uh, at around 105 a.m. Four people are walking home like young people, uh, college age, uh, through the Fenway from a St. Patrick's Day party nearby. There was out like an apartment or something. As they walk past the museum's side entrants on Palace Road, they noticed a hatchback parked in a sort of conspicuous place, but they probably wouldn't have thought twice about it if two of them hadn't seen what appeared to be two Boston cops sitting inside of this hatchback, which is weird because it was not

a police car. It was like some kind of, you know, little hatchback for like a college student or something. Inside the museum are at the same time. That's at 105. similar time inside the museum there's two guards on duty one is at a desk near the same side entrance door that we were just talking about a second ago on palace road and the other was off on his round somewhere inside the museum so there's one guard at the door the other one's gone about 20 minutes later at one 24 two men dressed as boston police officers walk up to the same door which is typically an employee entrance and buzzes the guard at the desk the cops or cop like people told the guards that they had come because somebody had reported some sort of disturbance

on the premises and that they wanted to come in and check it out. The guard says, okay, buzzes them in, which again is against protocol. By 128 a.m., they had gotten the first guard to call the second guard back from his rounds to the office, which took him less than 30 seconds to get there. And one of the cop guys has told the guard at the desk that he felt he looked familiar. He's like, I think you look familiar. I think I have a, I think there's a war and out for your arrest. And they're like,

the guards, the guards are like, what the fuck? But unfortunately, they're also like inexperienced, like hippie student, like band playing type guys and not like ex-cops or ex-military guys.

So within a few more minutes, the not cops had peacefully subdued these guys and handcuffed them and broke the news to them that gentlemen, this is a robbery, before leading them down some stairs.

Oh, dang it. They got, God, tricked second time this week. Bob fuck. So, dude. So one guard,

one guard has led to one side of the basement alone and he's cuffed to a boiler. And the other guard is led down to the other side of the basement, like across the building and is cuffed under a work sink. Both of them have their heads, including their eyes and mouths covered in duct tape at around 1.30 a.m. and then more duct tape is wrapped around their wrists in case they figured out some way to get out of the handcuffs.

So now they're like extra fucking tied up. And at this point, the thieves have free reign of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum collection for the next 81 minutes. Most art thefts are finished in between five and ten minutes. So that is a fucking crazy amount of time. That's a long time. Yeah.

Luckily, we know a lot about what they did because the museum had a motion tracker following their movements from room to room. And at this point in the story, it might be worth it if I give you a map of the premises to follow along with in case you get confused because now we're going to get a little bit more specific with stuff. So here's the map from the official sites, a PDF.

This is also going to be in the show notes, but you guys can have it and look at it too. The first reading we have in the motion tracker is from the landing outside the door of the Dutch room on the second floor. And this is likely because it houses works by the Dutch master painter Rembrandt Since indeed by the time of the Gardner Museum heist

Every other museum in Massachusetts with Rembrandts in it Had already been robbed at least once Crazy Yeah One of the Rembrandts was Christ In the Storm on the Sea of Galilee That painting looks like this It'll be in the show notes if you want to look at it

It's Rembrandt's only seascape It's a very dramatic seascape You've probably seen it if you are a cultured individual. Dramatic except for the one dude who's super fucking chill sitting in that boat. I'm sure that's Jesus, dude. Yeah, it looks like it might be Jesus. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be Jesus.

Because he looks like he's a cartoon compared to everybody else who looks very real. If you want to link a little like, if you want some trivia. A little sassy looking. The face of the, are you guys talking about the sailor that's looking at the camera? No. No, the one of the profile shot. The one look at the camera looks like dopey from Snow White. Yeah.

Oh, I see the guy you're talking about. Yeah, the guy who clearly is Jesus. The guy who's looking at the camera, though, a little trivia for you, self-portrait of Rembrandt himself. Oh, Rembrandt? It looks like a little dopey. I like it. So they take Christ in the storm on the Sea of Galilee down from the wall. And they also take down a lady and gentlemen in black, which is another Rembrandt, which looks like this.

It's another one that, like, you've definitely seen it. Very famous image, even though it has been stolen. This one is interesting because x-rays of this painting showed that originally a child was sitting on the woman's leg. This is like a portrait of two people standing next to each other from the 1600s or something like that. But Rembrandt ultimately removed the child because probably because the child died and the people in the painting did not want the reminder of the child who died young to be in the painting forever. So they probably had Rembrandt remove it before he finished it. So then using a box cutter, the thieves slice both of these paintings out of their frame so hard that it leaves gashes on the supports around the canvas. And they just roll them up.

Fucking Rembrandts. They also grabbed another painting nearby called Landscape with Obelisk, which looks like this. And for many years was also... Damn, that's like a fantasy painting. It looks, that looks like some dark tower shit. Yeah, I was going to say it looks like the dark tower. A book about the museum from the early 70s lists this painting as a Rembrandt. But in 1980, it was determined that this was actually by one of his students.

And I'm so sorry, Hilda. His name is Govert Flink. Gover Fling. Yeah. So they cut this painting from its frame anyway, probably because they thought it was a Rembrandt, confusing for profilers, what level of art expertise has been ascribed to these thieves over the years. There's just some weird things that they did during this robberant. that makes you think twice

because some things you're like, they knew exactly what they wanted and they went right for them and other things you're like, why the fuck did they take this thing that has already been known not to be Rembrandt for 10 years by this time? And they were,

I mean, they were in their fair, like you said, 81 minutes. I mean, that kind of might even speak a little bit to how much they didn't really know what they were looking for

if they probably spent that time perusing. Well, they were also carefully slicing paintings out of their frames and rolling them up. Because they are Rembrandts. They take another giant, Rembrandt self portrait down from the wall, but they decide to leave it because it's big and it was on wood instead of canvas.

So that's probably why they didn't take it. And then they grab one of the museum's most cherished treasures, which is a beautiful domestic interior called the concert by Johannes Vermeer. You've probably seen this painting too. It's a painting with paintings in it. Here you go. Interestingly, this painting, it's like a house. It's like a recital in a house. This painting was also fake stolen in a fictional episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1964 called 10 minutes from now, but then it was actually stolen.

They removed this canvas from the frame and they shatter the glass. Also, strangely, located in the same, the Dutch room, is a 10-inch tall ancient Chinese beaker-like vessel called a goo from the 12th century BCE. though this item is not particularly valuable at this point they spend a lot of time trying to remove this goo they think it's originally attached to this like cloth underneath it and so they like slice at the cloth and then they find out that it was attached

to this like heavy metal base so before they even get it off they like fuck up this base and then eventually they finally get it off but if you want to know or see a little bit about this goo it's here this is from the 12th century BCE That's pretty crazy.

It's pretty old compared to some of this other stuff, but it is not as valuable. Looks like a horn almost. It's like a, yeah, it's like a beaker, like an open sort of like horn shaped beaker. Yeah. Next, the thieves notice a small postage stamp sized self-portrait of the artist as a young man etching by Rembrandt. And maybe because they didn't get the big wooden self-portrait. They decided to take this one instead, even though it's the size of a stamp. It's this one.

You've probably seen it looks like this. and since they know for sure the police aren't on their way, they actually take the time not only to unscrew the frame of this of this portrait from the cabinet that it's attached to the side of, they also take the time to carefully unscrew each screw in the frame itself and take the little tiny etching, which probably took five minutes by itself. They also took down one more Rembrandt self-portrait in a gold frame.

But most people think that once they got it, down and leaned it up against the wall from the back, the way the backing was. Like, the next morning, even the director of the museum herself, like, thought that the painting was taken from the frame when she looked at it. And they think that that's why it got left behind is because it was like on the ground. And if you were, like, scooping up all the stuff that you grabbed, you'd look at that frame and you'd think the painting was already gone from it. Here's a picture of that miracle painting, which survived.

It's Rembrandt at 26, I think it is, or Rembrandt at 20. I can't remember how old he is. I think he's 23. It's like he's quite young in it. Yeah. In Delphor, fellow. Age 23.

And the reason this painting is so like miraculous that it was saved is because it was literally this painting that when Isabella bought it, she decided that she would start collecting art for the public instead of herself. So it's like a pretty important painting beyond its worth as Rembrandt also to this museum. So it's cool that it got to stay. By this point from when they were first buzzed in the door, 40 minutes have now passed, which is crazy. At 151, one of the thieves leaves and heads across the stair hall to the early Italian room and walks straight through it. And the Raphael room walks straight through it takes absolutely nothing despite literal masterpieces all around them,

which makes some people think they had specific goals. But then, you know, sometimes it doesn't seem that way. Eventually, the guy arrives. Specific taste. Right. Next, the guy arrives in the short gallery, breaks a little glass, grabs five drawings by the French master Edgar de Gaugh out of a cabinet before getting to work on a Napoleonic War banner. So here's these sketches from De Gaas. Three of them are horses and jockeys, and there's like some musical instruments in there and stuff. You can see them. They're like sketches. Some of them. have a little bit of color. They're very beautiful because they're by de Gaa, but they're not

particularly breathtaking as some of this other artwork is. That's why it was kind of in like a cabinet. They're kind of like paneled cabinets with like glass and they just broke it and took it right out. Like they weren't even like you actually turn the pages of the cabinet to look at all the stuff in it. So they just broke that and took it out. Fortunately, the thief seems to have had some trouble liberating the Napoleonic flag. The Napoleonic flag is still hanging in the gardener museum. And instead, he decides to settle for the finial on the corner of the flag, which was so inconsequential that the museum did not even notice it was missing until the next day

when these screws from it were found in a fire sand bucket nearby. And here's a picture of the flag with the finial still on it. It's like an eagle. You see that on the side of the flag there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see that. Yeah, yeah, I see. They couldn't get the flags. They just unscrewed this eagle on one corner and took the, you know,

that instead. So then that guy who does that joins his buddy back in the Dutch room with whatever he needed he got. So he went back to the Dutch room. They made their way back out, grabbed everything they needed, back down to the first floor. They walked past a set of much more valuable ancient Chinese artifacts on the way, by the way, but just still grab the goo only. Back to the side entrance that came in from. It takes two trips to load everything into the car. And just before they leave, They also grabbed the print out from the motion center machine, the motion sensor machine, which was tracking all their movements, thinking that they were getting away clean. However, it was 1990, so they don't know that you can just press print again, and it will just print it out again. So that's how we know exactly how they went around in the building.

But yeah, after 81 luxurious minutes in which they could do whatever they wanted, they were gone. The robbery was not discovered until staff arrived the next morning at 6.45 a.m. and the poor fucking guards were not found until 8.15 when the police showed up and started actually looking around. Damn, that's hot. They were like that for like seven hours, which is crazy. And that, my friend, is the first half of the story of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum heist. But there's one last element of the story you need to hear because I said... Aliens?

Is it aliens? No, I said 13 things were stolen, but I've only mentioned 12. The final piece missing was this one. It was called Chey Tortoni by Edward Mane. There you go. A little Shea Tortolini. No. It's a man in the hat.

And it was removed from the blue room on the first floor sometime that night. It is a man in a top hat looking suspiciously at the proverbial camera. But the thing that's strange about this one is that during the time of the robbery, the motion detector logged no entrances or exits from this room at all of any kind. and when they went and they checked the logs, the last person who had been in and out of that room that night was the hippie musician guard who had been sitting at the desk that night, Richard Abath,

who had been on the outs with the museum security director already when he worked that shift. You remember that weird fake fight where Mathis was a baby from weeks earlier? Yeah. Everybody thought that was the thieves trying a dry run, right? Maybe trying to get somebody to come out. But actually, when they looked into it,

it, it was staff who said that it was some kind of prank gone wrong, but they never quite explained what the prank was going to be. So if the guy who worked at the museum was the last guy in and out of the room where one painting was taken, and that painting's frame was left on the chair of the security director of the museum, and that guy was mad at that guy. That's interesting. Yeah. See you guys next week.

Ah, this guy. All right. We'll see you next time. We got a minisone. We got a video to go over at patreon.com slash humanitide pod. We appreciate you. We love you. Goodbye.

Bye. Bye. Welcome back to the Jluminati podcast. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by the... There's two... What? Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. No.

Neo and Trinity. Oh! I don't understand. And I probably never will. Let me just tell you right now that there's two... Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. I'm telling you, I think he literally just looked up, famous duos. Cheech and Chalk.

And he's been going through the list ever since. I'm trying to dig deep. One of you is Dick Powell. Me? Your name's Jesse Cox. I want a big. A naughty podcast. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by Alex and Jesse.

A shooting star.