The operational night is one date. The investigative story is a generation of leads that did not return art.
Dates below follow museum and FBI public statements, not rumour timelines.
Timeline
- Fenway Court opens
Isabella Stewart Gardner opens her museum in Boston. The collection is installed as a personal palace, not a rotating gallery.
- Gardner's will
Her will requires that the arrangement of objects remain as she left it, locking later curators into the empty-frame choice after 1990.
- Thirteen works taken
In the early morning the museum loses Vermeer, two Rembrandt oils, a Rembrandt etching, a Manet, five Degas works, a Flinck, a bronze gu and a flag finial.
- FBI case opens
The Boston field office takes the federal investigation. Images of the missing works are circulated to dealers, customs and Interpol.
- Theft limit runs
The five-year federal limitation period on the original theft expires. Later possession and transport theories remain available.
- Empty frames as fixture
Under director Anne Hawley the rehung rooms with vacant frames become the museum's standing public statement.
- FBI identification claim
The Bureau says it believes deceased organised-crime figures carried out the theft and that the art moved afterward. No recovery follows.
- Public video appeal
Investigators release additional public material and again ask for information on the works' later handling.
- Reward to $10 million
The museum increases its offer for the return of all thirteen works in good condition, keeping the case in international art-crime news.
- Still open
Anniversary reporting repeats the same recovery score: zero. The FBI and the museum continue to treat the file as active.
After 2013 the timeline adds rewards and reminders, not restitutions.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.