In the Fast Lane: Susan Glover’s Wild Ride
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID SALAFIA for “In the Fast Lane”
Correction, May 26, 11 a.m.: In a previous version of this post, we wrote that the Corvette belonged to Glover. It does not. The story was part of Boston Home’s Covet section, which spotlights people posing with objects of their desire.
“As the Boston Public Library’s keeper of special collections, Susan Glover spends her days among millions of antique books, manuscripts, prints, and photographs,” says the winter 2015 edition of our publication Boston Home.
Not anymore. Glover has been placed on paid administrative leave as the FBI and Boston police hunt for a Rembrandt etching and an Albrecht Durer engraving, missing from the library’s print collection.
Accompanied by the headline “In the Fast Lane: A Professional Collector Gears Up For a Wild Ride,” our photo shows Glover behind the wheel of a 2015 Corvette Stingray convertible. “They are just the most fun cars to drive,” Glover told us. “I never get behind the wheel of a Corvette without my heart beating a little faster and my smile beaming a bit broader.”
Glover has not been charged in connection with the missing art case, and the library has not said why she was placed on leave. Still, the apparent security failure took place on Glover’s watch. She has been off work since April 20; the disappearance of the Durer piece was discovered April 8, the Rembrandt’s after that. The Globe, which identifies Glover as the employee on leave on today’s print front page, notes that she “is among a small group of people with access to the secure area where the prints are stored.”
The Boston library owns more than 100,000 prints and drawings, one of the largest such collections in the nation, and its 30 Rembrandt prints and 105 Durer prints are among its “outstanding holdings,” the library’s website says. The Durer piece, “Adam and Eve,” an engraving from 1504, is valued at about $600,000. The Rembrandt etching, a self-portrait from 1634, is worth about $20,000 to $30,000.
