Two people stand and sit at a cluttered desk in a warmly lit interior. One person points toward the wristwatch of the seated person, who looks down at their arm. Framed paintings hang on the wall behind them, and books, papers, and desk objects are scattered across the workspace.
Detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) and Jud Duplenticy (played by Josh O'Connor) in Knives Out 3 . Courtesy of Netflix.

Blink and you might miss it, but at the one-hour mark of Wake Up Dead Man, the latest installment in Netflix’s Knives Out mystery series, a painted seascape briefly appears when Father Jud Duplenticy (played by Josh O’Connor) sits at his desk to write his recollections of a shadowy murder. This is the only scene in which that room appears, and savvy viewers will notice the canvas at stage left as Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), which was one of 13 masterpieces stolen in the infamous 1990 art heist from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Rembrandt painted this biblical scene early in his career, at age 27, and it shows panicked disciples struggling to regain control of their fishing boat after a storm suddenly swept in. A story about human vulnerability and fear, Christ remains calm and ultimately says, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” before calming the storm. Only one figure looks out at the viewer, a self-portrait of Rembrandt himself—one hand holding a cap that might fly off, the other holding a rope.

Thomas E. Marr and Son (American, 1910-1942), Dutch Room, 1926. Glass plate negative. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Recognizable artworks of this caliber are rare in Wake Up Dead Man, but impressive art cameos are very much on brand for the Knives Out series. The previous installment, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), had an all-star art historical cast populating the set design of the obscenely decadent home of Miles Bron (played by Edward Norton). Beyond Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (ca. 1503-06), which was somehow on personal loan from the Louvre (and set on fire towards the end of the film), there were works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Edgar Degas, David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, and Cy Twombly. 

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). Whereabouts unknown since 1990.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is aware that a reproduction of one (out of three) of their stolen Rembrandts appears in Wake Up Dead Man, but this wasn’t the product of a collaboration between the museum and the production team. (It appears that the image of the painting—like the painting itself—was taken without permission.) This also isn’t the first time that this particular Rembrandt had appeared onscreen.

“We see several of our stolen works of art—especially Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee—in popular culture all the time,” says Holly Salmon, the museum’s director of conservation. “It feels like it’s become part of the popular imagination,” adds Nat Silver, the museum’s associate director and chief curator. Rembrandt’s seascape can also be seen on the wall of a villainous character in the Karate Kid spinoff television series, Cobra Kai (season 5, episode 10). And in the French thriller series Lupin, the hospice room of the villain’s mother is decorated with four of the stolen Gardner paintings in season 3, episode 3 (although the scale of the works is way off). (The Gardner’s stolen Vermeer has also apparently appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, where it was part of the collection of Montgomery Burns.)

Dutch Room, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2023

Meanwhile, despite its simulated appearance in these varied places, the gallery where Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee actually belongs is nearing the end of an ambitious multi-year and floor-to-ceiling restoration project. Referred to by the museum as the Dutch Room, it is where six of the 13 works were stolen from during the 1990 theft. Slated to be completed by the end of this year, in May, the room will be deinstalled with the walls taken down to the studs before rewoven upholstery is placed on the walls. “Always, when we do that, we start to find even more connections that Gardner was intentionally making through all of these details,” says Salmon

The restoration has included the ornate gilded frame that Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee was cut from during the theft, and which has hung empty all these years. (According to conservator Andrew Haines, who recently worked on the frame, the seascape would have actually been paired with a more subdued black frame or less decorative gilt frame during the artist’s time.)

The Dutch Room restoration has led to some new discoveries and observations, as conservators closely study all the elements in the room. A set of 14 chairs upholstered in a peach-colored damask fabric in the mostly-green room didn’t really make visual sense, for example, until the team used several methods to determine that the chairs were originally a deep mauve color. “It’s actually quite exciting because you see red chairs in many paintings in that gallery, including our stolen Vermeer and one of our stolen Rembrandts,” notes Salmon. “Gardner was really, really thoughtful about what she put in which room. She really is trying to make the leap from a physical chair sitting on the floor of the gallery to chairs that you see in the paintings above.”

Andrew Haines, independent frame conservator, works on the frame for Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee in the Gardner Conservation Lab. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Salmon says that one of the biggest challenges in working on the room is actually the fact that five works of art are still missing from it, making it a bit like piecing together an incomplete puzzle set. “One of the things that we’re missing, that is for sure something I know Gardner did on purpose, is that the Storm on the Sea of Galilee is directly opposite of Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Age 23 (1629). And he paints himself into the Storm on the Sea of Galilee—he’s the figure looking out and directly engaging with the viewer, but because of where she placed it, he’s looking at himself,” shares Salmon.

Except, since 1990, a 23-year-old Rembrandt has been looking across the room at an empty frame instead of his slightly older, seafaring reflection. “There must be a piece missing,” says detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) in Wake Up Dead Man, moments before the infamous Rembrandt appears in the background. Popular culture cameos such as this one may keep the painting in public consciousness in some way. And hopefully, help it return to the Dutch Room where it belongs.

Karen Chernick