“I believe the secret of the location died with Bobby.”įBI spokeswoman Kristen Setera declined to comment on Calantropo’s account or whether Donati is believed to have been involved in the heist, citing the ongoing investigation.
“I was pretty crestfallen,” said Calantropo, a member of the group who is convinced that Donati hid the artwork somewhere before he died. In August, the FBI conducted a thorough search there but turned up nothing, according to Michael Kradolfer, a longtime investigator for the Massachusetts Department of Correction who was assigned to the FBI’s organized crime unit before retiring several years ago. Members of the group said they gave the FBI several addresses that Donati may have frequented, including a house in Everett where his former wife and sister had lived. In April, the group signed an agreement with the Gardner Museum, which stipulates that the members will share equally in the reward if they provide information that leads to the return of the artwork in restorable condition, according to a copy of the document Kurkjian shared with the Globe, along with a detailed account of his work with the group. Over the past year, Calantropo has been working behind the scenes with an unlikely assortment of sleuths - including a retired law enforcement official, two former convicts and retired Boston Globe investigative reporter Stephen Kurkjian - in hopes of finding the artwork. The reported sighting of the stolen finial, so soon after the theft, offers a tantalizing clue in the enduring mystery, bolstering other accounts linking Donati to the crime. Five years ago, at the urging of a friend, he said he met with an FBI agent and the museum’s security director and told them about Donati’s visit, along with a detailed description of the finial. He said he kept quiet about it for years because he feared for his safety. Calantropo, a jeweler and fine arts appraiser for more than 40 years before he retired to Florida, said he has no doubt the artwork Donati showed him had been stolen from the museum. Now 70, Calantropo is speaking publicly for the first time about his meeting with Donati, whose name first surfaced as a potential suspect in the heist in the late 1990s. Related: The Gardner Museum art heist remains a mystery today. No one has been charged and none of the artwork has been recovered. Three decades later, the largest art theft in US history remains unsolved, despite a $10 million reward. Neither, of course, has the finial, swiped from atop a Napoleonic flag during the brazen heist. The following year, Donati, 50, was brutally murdered. The whole world knew it was stolen.ĭonati wrapped it up and left. He refused, unwilling to leave his fingerprints. “Jesus, Bobby why didn’t you steal the Mona Lisa?” Calantropo recalled asking him.ĭonati laughed as he lifted the finial and urged Calantropo to feel how heavy it was, Calantropo said. He immediately recognized the gilded bronze object from media reports as one of 13 pieces of artwork, including several Rembrandts, that had been stolen about a month earlier from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, he told the Globe in an lengthy interview. Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumĬalantropo was stunned. This eagle finial was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, among other valuable pieces of artwork.