oil on panel, 24.9 ? 29.9 cm
© Dulwich Picture Gallery
The most stolen painting of all is Rembrandt’s
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn,
oil on canvas, 127 ? 160 cm
On March 17, 1990, two thieves broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole $300 million worth of art. Mrs. Gardner’s will stipulated that her museum be kept just as she had arranged it. Below, a visitor looks at the frame that once held Rembrandt’s only seascape,
© Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA /Bridgeman Art Library
Edouard Manet,
oil on canvas, 34 ? 26 cm
© Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA /Bridgeman Art Library
The Gardner theft was the biggest in the history of art. The greatest prizes included Manet’s
Jan Vermeer,
oil on canvas, 64.7 ? 72.5 cm
© Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA /Bridgeman Art Library
The highest price ever paid for a painting was $104.1 million for Picasso’s
Pablo Picasso,
© Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, New York /Bridgeman Art Library /ARS
Vincent van Gogh,
oil on canvas, 56 ? 67 cm
© Private Collection /Bridgeman Art Library /ARS
Sid was glaringly out of place in a five-star hotel. Hill admitted to himself that he and Walker should have been more careful. Walker obviously wasn’t a Norwegian, and, much more important, he looked more like an armed robber than an international businessman.
Still, the close call left Hill closer to exultant than chagrined. He lived for such tightrope-without-a-net moments. “You can’t waver,” he’d learned in previous undercover ventures. “If you take time to gulp, you’re screwed. You’ve got to be as calm and relaxed and nonchalant and in control as you can be. You don’t run through your options. I don’t, anyway. I just trust my instincts. I don’t have a rational mind, and it’s so much easier to trust your instincts than it is to do a calculation. Usually it works out. Sometimes you get it wrong.”
This time it worked. Over the course of a few drinks, Johnsen’s suspicion of Walker gave way to something almost like camaraderie. The Norwegian leg-breaker recognized in the bad-tempered English crook a brother in arms. They were both professionals; they could work together.
The rooftop bar was more a drinking spot for tourists than for locals, because the prices were as stunning as the view. For Hill, flaunting his credit cards from the Getty, money was no object. Ulving and Johnsen were suitably impressed.
Hill kept the drinks coming and the talk flowing. The conversation dipped and meandered; there was no real agenda except to convince Ulving and Johnsen that they were indeed dealing with the Getty’s man. Each of the Norwegians posed a different challenge. Hill figured he had Ulving’s measure. The art dealer was unsavory and full of shit, but his self-importance made him vulnerable. Hill would have to watch his step when he talked about art, but he had enormous faith in his “bullshit art-speak mode.” And Ulving liked to go on about his helicopter and his hotel and all the rest, but Roberts was the big-spending, free-wheeling Man from the Getty, so Hill figured he had that angle covered, too.
Johnsen posed a graver threat. He was a switched-on, alert crook, not much on charm but canny and cunning. The story about Johnsen buying and collecting art was crap, Hill felt certain. When Hill launched into art bullshit, Johnsen didn’t have a clue. But he was dangerous anyway. With assholes like him, it wasn’t a matter of what they knew. Instinct, not knowledge, was vital. Crooks like Johnsen operated on intuition and experience. Are you the real McCoy or not? Am I dealing with an easy mark?
The worst thing Hill could do was give Johnsen the impression he could take his money
At the bar with Ulving, Johnsen, and Walker, Hill held forth on the strange life and career of James Ensor. He was a Belgian painter, a contemporary of Munch, an odd duck who went in for a kind of Dada-esque surrealism. The Getty owned Ensor’s masterpiece,
Hill finished up with a few impassioned words about how important and groundbreaking the proposed exhibition would be. Johnsen seemed to have bought Hill’s line, or perhaps he had simply sat through as much art chat as he could take.
“Can we do the deal tomorrow morning?” Johnsen asked.
“Yeah, fine,” Hill said. “We can do that.” He ignored Walker—Walker was a bodyguard, not a partner, and didn’t need to be consulted on arrangements—and directed his attention toward Johnsen and Ulving.
“We’ll meet in the hotel restaurant tomorrow, for breakfast,” Hill said.
Hill strolled to the elevator and pushed the button for 16. He whistled a few cheery bars of an unidentifiable tune—for good reason, he had never tried to impersonate a musician—and headed to his room to see what the minibar might have in store. The next day’s plan, he felt sure, would go off without a hitch. It didn’t.
