Lost Artworks – Jan Vermeer

Jan Vermeer “The Concert”

Our daisy online gallery continues to bring you a few stories of lost and highly precious artworks – like the following one:

Jan Vermeer’s painting of a private concert is among the most valuable stolen artworks ever. The painting was created around 1665, it shows a woman at a harpsichord, a man at a lute and a woman singing. Art experts estimate its value at around 250 million dollars. Vermeer paintings are also of such high value because the Dutch painter of the Baroque period produced only three dozen of his inimitable paintings.

The first time the oil painting disappeared was in 1696, when it was sold in Amsterdam – but it reappeared almost a hundred years later, in 1780. In 1892, the art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner bought the Vermeer painting for $5,000 at a sale in Paris, and from 1903 it was exhibited in the private museum named after her. Finally, in March 1990, it was stolen from the Isabela Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, on St. Patrick’s Day. Two thieves disguised as police officers showed up at the museum early in the morning at just before 2 a.m. under the pretext of having been called for a disturbance. They took the night watchmen by surprise and stole a total of 1 work of art – not a single one has been recovered to this day.

Jan Vermeer: The Concert

Information source:
Thorsten Schmitz and Kia Vahland:”Where are you?”