BOSTON -- Thieves posing as police overpowered museum guards early Sunday and stole 'hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of paintings, drawings and etchings by such masters as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet, and Degas, authorities said.
One expert called the theft among the worst in decades in the United States and speculated that the thieves were hired by a private collector. Some of the works were of 'staggering importance,' he said.
The two male thieves gagged, maced and handcuffed two guards and stole 12 works from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum shortly after 1 a.m., acting Curator Karen Haas said. The guards, who were found bound around 7 a.m. by maintenance workers, were not seriously injured.
Authorities said the thieves, dressed in security or police uniforms, gained access to the museum by claiming to be Boston police officers investigating a disturbance near the building.
Five works were stolen from the museum's Dutch room, including a Rembrandt oil painting, 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,' as well as a small self-portrait etching and a double-portrait by the 17th-century Dutch master.
Also taken was an oil, 'The Concert,' by Dutch master Jan Vermeer and an oil by Govaert Flinck.
Five paintings and drawings by the Frenchman Edgar Degas; 19th-century French master Edouard Manet's oil 'Chez Tortoni'; and the oldest work in the museum's eclectic collection, a Chinese bronze beaker dating to the Shang Dynasty around 1200 B.C., also were stolen, officials said.
Both the museum and the FBI refused to say whether the thieves had demanded a ransom for the works. Haas said the museum was insured, but did not reveal the amount of coverage. Although the Gardner has a sophisticated security system, not all of the objects stolen were wired to alarms, she said.
'I've been here for 12 years. This is like the loss of very, very old friends,' Haas said. 'It really is a crushing feeling.'
The exact value of the stolen pieces was uncertain because the museum's collection cannot be sold, Haas said. 'But we can easily say they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars,' she said. 'People aren't buying Rembrandts every day, so it's very hard to put a value on the paintings.'
Police and FBI agents were investigating the heist, the first ever from the Gardner's collection, according Corey Cronin, the museum's security director.
Franklin Robinson, an expert in Dutch paintings and director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, said he believed the theft of the Dutch works was commissioned because the paintings formed such a 'coherent group.'
'Whoever has it at this moment now has one of the great private collections of 17th-century Dutch paintings -- absolutely illegal, of course,' Robinson said. '(They) are so coherent and of such staggering importance.'
Robinson said the three Rembrandts 'show three different sides of Rembrandt and give an extraordinary view of that great artist.'
Zirka Filipczak, a professor of art at Williams College, said Rembrandt's seascape had a 'uniqueness that in many ways makes it special.'
''The Storm on the Sea' is a very unusual work because it is a New Testament scene and yet a seascape that shows a storm,' Filipczak said. 'It seems to span genres. There isn't anything else in Rembrandt's work like it.'
Fewer than 40 Vermeers are known to exist, none held by private collectors, Robinson said.
'If you have tens ofmillions of dollars you can buy a Rembrandt,' he said. 'You cannot buy a Vermeer.'
Robinson said the stolen Vermeer was 'in very good condition compared to other Vermeers. It's not just Vermeer, but it's also Vermeer at his best.'
An FBI spokesman said authorities were interviewing the guards, processing the museum for fingerprints and looking for 'just about anything we can find.'
Asked if agents suspected an inside job, FBI spokesman Paul Cavanagh said, 'In this type of situation, we're not closing the doors on any avenue.'
Interpol and other international agencies were alerted, and FBI agents with expertise in art were called into the case, he said.
The art was stolen from two rooms on the second floor, including the museum's Dutch Room, and from a first-floor gallery.
Housed in a four-story building designed in the style of a 15th-century Venetian palace, the 87-year-old Gardner Museum is considered one of the finest small art collections in the country.
Its paintings by Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Botticelli, and other masters hang with works by lesser-known artists collected by Isabella Gardner, a major figure in Boston society until her death in 1924.
None of the collection's other works appeared to have been damaged in the robbery, officials said.
Gardner, who lived in the four-story building, stipulated in her will that none of the museum's works -- 290 paintings and about 2,000 other objects, including tapestries, period furniture, and a collection of presidential letters -- could be moved or sold.
'If things are moved or changed, her will says the whole collection would be sold at auction in Paris and the proceeds would go to Harvard University,' Haas said.
The theft was not expected to jeopardize the status of the unique collection, officials said.
