Geoffrey Rockwell

Geoff Rockwell took a self portrait on duty at the Gardner Museum as a security guard during the second shift in 1987.

Geoffrey Rockwell

Rockwell worked nights sometimes roaming the galleries as a guard. He photographed a detail from a Tintoretto portrait using a flashlight as the light source in 1987.

Geoffrey Rockwell

Rockwell's sketch done after Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

The Boston Globe

"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" by Rembrandt (1633) was one of the masterpieces stolen in 1990, in what remains the biggest unsolved art heist in history.

Geoffrey Rockwell

Rockwell's sketch done in 1986 after Vermeer's "The Concert."

MFA

"The Concert" by Johannes Vermeer was also stolen in the 1990 heist.

The Boston Globe

A security guard stood outside the Dutch Room, the site where robbers stole treasured art objects in an early morning robbery at the Gardner Museum on March 18, 1990.

Jim Bourg /Reuters

The empty frame from Rembrandt's oil painting "A Lady and Gentleman in Black" lay on the floor with the canvas cut out on March 21, 1990, and a space on the wall of the museum (left) was bare where Rembrandt's "The Storm and The Sea of Galilee" once hung.

The Boston Globe

The Gardner kept the empty frames of the stolen paintings on display. An empty frame at right marks Vermeer’s “The Concert,” and the empty frame from Rembrandt's “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” (1633) is in the background.