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theft and the case of the stolen turners  20 july 2012  In his
uneven but highly informative study Art Theft and the Case of
the Stolen Turners, Sandy Nairne lists four motives for the
theft of high-profile artworks: resale, ransom, obsession, and
politics. The third and fourth are romantic but rare. There are
more directly persuasive methods of political activism than
stealing Old Masters. And the "Dr. No"-type art thief, the one
who purloins irreplaceable wonders for the pleasure of looking
at them in his diabolical super-villain lair, is evidently a
myth. Though how would we know? And in the case of the paintings
stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, maybe
the best theory is that they are sitting in a mad superman's
climate-controlled mountain chamber, where he can sit and gase
at them, stroke his cat, and cackle insidiously. It's as good as
another.  But more likely, the Gardner thefts are stashed
somewhere, safe but not par