The Gardner Heist Part I: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Richard Abath

In this episode, we introduce the Gardner Heist and two important figures in our story: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Richard Abath. We begin with Isabella's conception of the museum, her place within Bostonian culture and the Gilded Age in the 1800s; then we head to 1990 to meet one of our museum guards present at the night of the infamous heist, Richard Abath. We're taking you from Lithuania under the Russian empire to Connecticut to see the Grateful Dead play. Thanks for listening! 

Trigger warning: there is a brief mention of suicide but no further discussion.

“Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by his spells.” - Karl Marx 

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Some references for this episode:

History of Art History by Christopher S. Wood

Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life by Nathaniel Silver

Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade by Rachel Cohen

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/uncategorized/2006/05/15/the-new-brahmins/