The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Gu

On the night of the Gardner Museum heist, the thieves walked through the Dutch Room past some of the most famous paintings in the world. Their very last grab in that room wasn't a painting. They picked up a small bronze cup from a table and carried it out. That cup, called a gu (pronounced "goo"), is more than 3,000 years old. It's the oldest object the thieves took that night.

What is a gu?

A gu is a tall, slender drinking vessel from ancient China. It flares out wide at the top like a trumpet, narrows in the middle, and widens again at the base. The Gardner's gu is about 10 inches tall, and it comes from the Shang dynasty, around the 12th century BCE. To put that in perspective, someone made this cup about 2,800 years before Rembrandt's birth.

People in the Shang dynasty didn't use a gu for everyday drinking. They used it to serve wine during ceremonies that honored their ancestors. Families believed their ancestors could still help them, so they offered food and drink in beautiful bronze vessels to show respect.

How do you make a bronze cup 3,000 years ago?

Shang artists were amazing metalworkers. They built molds out of clay, carved designs into the inside of the molds, and poured melted bronze into them. When the metal cooled, they broke the clay away and the finished vessel came out with the design raised on its surface. Many Shang bronzes have patterns of swirls and animal faces covering them from top to bottom.

Bronze starts out shiny and golden brown, like a new penny. Over thousands of years, it slowly turns green as the metal reacts with air and soil. That green coating is called a patina, and it's one way experts can tell a bronze is very, very old.

Why would thieves take a cup?

The gu was worth far less than the Rembrandts or the Vermeer, so its theft is one more mystery in a case full of them. Did the thieves know what it was? Did they grab it because it was small and easy to carry? We may never know.

Discussion Questions:

• Why do you think people used their most beautiful objects to honor their ancestors?

• What object in your home would you want someone to find 3,000 years from now? What would it tell them about you?

Of all the stolen works, the gu has the longest story. It survived 3,000 years, a trip across the world, and a century in Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection. We hope it's still out there somewhere, safe, and that someday it finds its way back to the Dutch Room.