The Concert

Johannes Vermeer painted The Concert around 1664, depicting three figures engaged in music-making within a wealthy Dutch home. A woman sits at a harpsichord, her back partially turned, while a man plays the lute facing away from the viewer entirely. A second woman stands singing, completing this intimate domestic scene. On the wall behind them hangs a copy of Dirck van Baburen's The Procuress, a painting Vermeer's mother-in-law actually owned.

The Concert became the centerpiece of the largest art theft in history. On March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers talked their way into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and stole thirteen works, including this Vermeer. The painting alone accounts for roughly half the theft's estimated $500 million value. No arrests have been made. No works recovered. The museum still displays the empty frame where The Concert once hung, alongside a $10 million reward for information.

Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased the painting in 1892 for $5,000 at the estate sale of Théophile Thoré, the critic who'd revived Vermeer's reputation decades earlier. It was her first major acquisition. One of only 34 confirmed Vermeers in existence, The Concert may be the most valuable stolen object in the world. The case remains open.