Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft: Robert Wittman and Corsica

Summary: Retired FBI Special Agent Wittman links a finial in 13 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft casualties March 18, 1990, to organized crime in Corsica.

Robert King Wittman; Roanoke College, Salem, Shenandoah Valley, southwestern Virginia; Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 19:15:03: Roanoke College (roanokecollege), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Ireland and Italy are logical destinations for 12 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft casualties March 18, 1990, even though they are illogical when accounting for the 13th, a flag-topping Napoleonic finial.

Robert King Wittman, co-author with John Shiffman of Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures, brings in the logical destination of Corsica. A finial from a Napoleonic flag calls up a world-famous leader from a west Mediterranean island, Nabulionu Bonaparte (Aug. 15, 1769-May 5, 1821) of Ajaccio, Corsica. Information that delivers all 13 artworks safely back home draws $5 million in reward money while information that delivers just the finial draws a $100,000 recompense.

Corsica's culture, history and language express French and Italian influences and therefore explain the extraction of one French finial, one French painting and five French drawings.

Art security-specialized private consultant Wittman furnishes details in his memoir, with Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Shiffman, from his years as Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent, 1988-2008. Baltimore antiques stores for family businesses and Philadelphia for field division got the subsequent Art Theft Division Director into Barnes Foundation's antiques, art, gem, jewelry training. Background, experience and training headed the undercover National Art Crime Team Senior Investigator into France, Spain and the United States as wealthy art collector Bob Clay. Wiretapping by French counterparts to the FBI of intermediaries with alleged interactions with organized crime in Corsica inspired Operation Masterpiece from late 2006 through early 2008.

Intercepted references to a Vermeer painting, with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft the only casualty worldwide, suspiciously joined those of "frames for Bob [Clay]."

Nobody knows how, when and where Corsica's Brise de mer (Sea breeze), Ireland's Irish Republican Army and Italy's Cosa Nostra (Our Thing) allegedly keep stolen artworks.

The author listed for why that "A lot of time in Europe these [stolen] paintings are used as get out of jail free cards" during arrests. He mentioned as contacts for stolen Rembrandt and Vermeer artworks alleged assassins Chocolate and Vanilla and Paris accountant Laurenz Cogniat and Cogniat associate, Bernard "Sunny" Ternus. He noted the Corsican connection as the "best chance in a decade to rescue the Gardner paintings" even though Operation Masterpiece instead netted four unrelated artworks.

Operation Masterpiece obtained the return of one Monet, one Sisley and two Bruegel, not of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art theft casualties, to Nice, France.

The retriever of $300-plus million in stolen art and cultural property in 20 years pointed to two France-based thefts as perilous to the Gardner 13's recovery. Information on two paintings stolen from Pablo Picasso's (Oct. 25, 1881-April 8, 1973) granddaughter Diana Widmaier Picasso's apartment Feb. 26 or 27, 2007, queued up first. Information on four paintings stolen from Nice's Musée des Beaux-Arts, 580-plus miles (933.42-plus kilometers) south of the Paris theft, Aug. 5, 2007, restructured Operation Masterpiece's priorities.

The world-famous art detective speaks of shifts to arrest and recovery in the Nice and Paris thefts since "we couldn't get the Vermeer or the Rembrandt." He tells audiences that "those art thieves didn't lie about the Picassos, so I thought they weren't lying about the rest of the paintings [in Corsica]."

Northern Corsica's Gang de la Brise de Mer derives its name from a bar in the old port of Bastia, Corsica's principal port; panorama of Bastia's vieux port ("old port"), Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, 09:42: Louis Moutard-Martin, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Robert King Wittman; Roanoke College, Salem, Shenandoah Valley, southwestern Virginia; Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 19:15:03: Roanoke College (roanokecollege), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/26254305@N08/14009300255/

Northern Corsica's Gang de la Brise de Mer derives its name from a bar in the old port of Bastia, Corsica's principal port; panorama of Bastia's vieux port ("old port"), Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, 09:42: Louis Moutard-Martin, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons@ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bastia_ville_01.jpg

For further information:

Bon, Gerard. 28 February 2007. "Two Picasso Paintings Stolen from Paris Apartment." Reuters > World News.
Available @ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-picasso-theft-idUSL283536620070228

Kurkjian, Stephen. 4 April 2010. "4/4/10: Turf War May Have Ruined Gardner Heist Lead." Boston Globe > Metro.
Available @ https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2010/04/04/turf-war-may-have-ruined-gardner-heist-lead/QDRaTSaGr4aR19M6BIaHTL/story.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 24 February 2017. "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft: Degas Dancers." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/02/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-art_24.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 March 2017. "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft: Degas Funeral Procession." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/03/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-art.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 March 2017. "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft: Manet Cafegoer." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/03/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-art_17.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 February 2017. "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Theft: Napoleonic Flag Topper." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/02/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-art_17.html

Pollack, Barbara. 25 May 2016. "Anything Can Break Bad: An FBI Special Agent Has Learned the Difference between the Art World and the Mafia." Art News > News > Feature > Crime > Summer 2016.
Available @ http://www.artnews.com/2016/05/25/anything-can-break-bad-an-fbi-special-agent-has-learned-the-difference-between-the-art-world-and-the-mafia/

Willsher, Kim. 7 August 2007. "Priceless Paintings Stolen at Gunpoint from Nice Museum." The Guardian > World News > Europe.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/07/france.arttheft

Wittman, Robert King; with John Shiffman. 2010. Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures. New York NY: Crown Publishing Group, Inc.