The Daily Feather — The Curious Case of the Gardner Museum Art Heist

On March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as policemen broke into the Gardner Museum in Boston and made away with 13 works of art. To this day, the crime remains unsolved and the artwork has never been recovered. Among the stolen loot was “The Concert” by Johannes Vermeer, which many consider to be the world’s most valuable missing painting, likely worth several hundred million dollars if it were ever sold at auction. The 17th-century man who made it, Vermeer, was not a particularly prolific artist. “The Concert” is one of only 34 known paintings of his that exist, which are largely portraits of women in quaint, domestic settings. The Dutchman’s sparse output was likely a function of having his hands full with 15 children, and his passing away at just 43 years old. At the time of his death, Vermeer was penniless and not well-known outside the Dutch art world, but is considered one of the all-time greats today. A 2023 retrospective of his work broke attendance records at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, selling more than 650,000 tickets.

Last week, we found ourselves victims of a heist, not of art, but of the data variety. Friday’s docket would have normally bequeathed us with a fresh jobs report to scour, but 8:30 AM ET came and went unceremoniously for the first time since the October 2013 shutdown. Thus, attention was redirected to September’s ISM Services release. The Bloomberg headline told the story: “US Services Gauge Falls on Weakest Business Activity Since 2020.” The index dipped two points to a breakeven level of 50, its lowest since January 2010. While a majority of industries still reported growth (10 expanding vs. 7 contracting), this was down two from the month prior. Furthermore, the contracting industries were overwhelmingly of the cyclical variety and included: Mining, Construction, Retail Trade, Agriculture, Real Estate, Management Services, and Professional Services.