La tempesta sul mare di Galilea

This is the only seascape Rembrandt ever painted, made in 1633 when he was young and out to prove himself. Christ and his disciples are caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the boat pitched up on a wave with the sail straining and one man being sick over the side while another looks straight out at us. That face is Rembrandt himself, put among the terrified crew. The painting has not been seen in public since the early hours of the 18th of March, 1990. Two men dressed as police talked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, tied up the guards and cut this canvas out of its frame along with 12 other works. None have ever been recovered. Its empty frame still hangs on the museum wall where Rembrandt's storm used to be.