Most Interesting Man: Homeland Security and Art Theft Expert Talks About Amazing Scheme
Sunday, May 31, 2020
He was a lead investigator on terrorist Richard Reid, the so-called “Shoe Bomber." He is Director of Security and Chief Investigator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Now, he is unveiling his new book.
Anthony Amore, who could play the role of Dos Equis' "most interesting man in the world," just completed his newest book, The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe book chronicles the story of a member of the British upper crust who pulled off one of the most brazen art thefts in order to support the Irish Republican Army.
"If you look at the history of the art theft ...works by artists, things that everybody knows are worth tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, they're exclusively stolen by men except in the case of Rose Dugdale and in 1974," said Amore.
"This remarkable woman who was born an heiress to extreme wealth in Great Britain decided that she was going to dedicate her life to supporting the Irish Republican Army, you know, the sworn enemy of the rule in Great Britain in the United Kingdom," said Amore, a Providence native and a 1989 graduate of the University of Rhode Island.
"And what she did was steal 19 paintings from the Russborough House in Ireland including a Vermeer painting called A Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid which at the time is the biggest art heist in terms of dollars in the history of the world. And, for a woman to have done this and for the reasons she did it it's just a remarkable story," said Amore.
This is not Amore’s first piece, his The Art of the Con was a New York Times bestseller. And, his Stealing Rembrandts was critically acclaimed.
Amore makes the point that when art is stolen from a museum, it is the public that loses access to art.
This new book is on pre-order here.
The Lost Art Project
But, Amore is not done. He has launched a new blog -- Lost Art Project -- dedicated to informing the public about the problem of art-related crimes and brings to the forefront important works that have been stolen but remain unrecovered.
"Since I've been looking for the Gardner Museum paintings it's been 15 years. It's been quite a journey," said Amore. "One of the things I've decided I want to do is educate people about the problem of art theft because when I left Homeland Security to come to this job [Director of Security at the Gardner Museum] and had no idea of the breadth of what's missing out there, I did everything from write books about it --- I even had this award-winning artist design an adult coloring book with a lot of the missing art -- and now started created something called The Lost Art Project."
"What I plan to do is educate the public about what's missing and tell them, from my perspective as a security person and an investigator, as to maybe what went wrong or the value of what's missing that you might not know about, and in my own small way hopefully educate the public about the problem of art theft," added Amore.
