Thieves Dressed as Police Stole 13 Works From a Boston Museum. Decades Later, Empty Frames Still Wait.

But recovery by any mechanism would be significant. The paintings would be returned to Boston. The Dutch Room would receive its canvases back into their waiting frames. Conservators would begin the careful work of assessing and treating whatever damage thirty-six-plus years had caused. The Vermeer would be studied with tools and techniques unavailable in 1990. The Rembrandt seascape would be seen again.

And the people who stood in the Dutch Room in 1991, or 2001, or 2011, looking at five empty frames, would have the satisfaction of knowing that the waiting ended—that the frames, which held their shape for decades in the expectation of return, were right to hold it.

That is what a recovery would mean. It has not happened yet.