Displaying items by tag: boston public library

A rare map depicting the New England and Canadian coast has been returned to the Boston Public Library.

The “Carte Geographique de la Nouvelle France” was created by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1612, and stolen from the BPL in 2003, according to a library press release. Boston Public Library’s map curator, Ronald Grim, found the missing map advertised by a New York antiques dealer, and identified it by its distinctive flaws.

Both rare works of art missing from the Boston Public Library have been found inside the main branch where they were "misfiled," library President Amy Ryan said today.

The art was discovered in the library's print stacks just 80 feet from where they should have been, Ryan added.

We’re thrilled to have found these treasures right here at home,” Ryan, who announced her resignation yesterday amid the probe, said in a statement. “They were found safe and sound, simply misfiled."

In the spring of 1925, the famed painter John Singer Sargent was preparing to travel from London to Boston. His plan? To oversee the final installation of murals he’d created for the Museum of Fine Arts — mythic works that would join similar paintings at the Boston Public Library and Harvard’s Widener Library, cementing the artist’s relationship with the city he loved.

But Sargent never made the trip: He died in his sleep before embarking on the voyage.

Two treasured pieces of art — an etching by Rembrandt and an engraving by Albrecht Dürer — have gone missing from the Boston Public Library’s vaunted print collection, and investigators are probing whether the artwork was stolen through an inside job, the Herald has learned.

The library reported both pieces missing to police on April 29, after a BPL supervisor discovered they had gone missing on or around April 8, according to a police report obtained by the Herald.