Do the artworks referred to in the book really exist?
The Winter Egg and the Pansy Egg are real, as is the price tag placed on the Winter Egg when Christie’s sold it in April 2002 for $9.6 million, a world record. Other pieces mentioned include the sword gifted to Admiral Lord Nelson by Sultan Selim III after the Battle of the Nile in 1798 which sold at Sotheby’s in October 2002 for £350,000. Two famous paintings that are mentioned are The Concert by Jan Vermeer and Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt. Both works were part of the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum job, probably the world’s largest ever art heist when 12 paintings valued at over $100 million were stolen. It remains unsolved and all the paintings are still missing. (For further information about the art mentioned in the Double Eagle click here).
