In the summer of 2019, WSA associate member Donna Ticchi was interviewed by the BBC as part of their 2020 documentary on the stolen art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The documentary is a fascinating exploration into the 1990 art theft – infamously known as “the Gardner Heist.” Donna was one of two Gardner volunteers selected by the BBC for the final cut. Donna appears in a brief cameo shot at around 40:00. Her voice is heard at 40:25, and she is seen speaking at 40:35.
The lost painting in question is Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), the artist’s only seascape, whose empty frame is in the Dutch Room. Donna remembers this painting well. It was on a final exam in Baroque Art she took at the Gardner Museum – blue book in hand – as a sophomore at Emmanuel College in the 1970s. To learn about Storm on the Sea of Galilee, see: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/10953, and for the Gardner Heist, see: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/organization/theft
WSA members will remember the Gardner’s Dutch Room from our April 2019 tour of the Museums’s portraits. In contrast to the empty frames, the Dutch Room is filled with stunning portraits by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Holbein, Durer, Zurbaran, Van der Weyden, and Schongauer. In history, there were actual relationships among many of the portrait subjects, and part of the magic of the Gardner is learning about these.
Remembering the Gardner Heist with WSA Member Donna Ticchi