Man Accused Of Goya Theft

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30809, 22 July 1965, Page 17

Man Accused Of Goya Theft

(N Z.P A -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, July 21. A 61-year-old unemployed lorry driver appeared at Bow street Magistrate’s Court today charged with the four-year-old theft of the £140,000 sterling Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery. Kempton Bunton, a 61-year-old unemployed lorry driver.

was remanded on £lOO bail until August 11. The portrait, showing the Duke in full uniform with medals soon after his victorious entry into Madrid in the Napoleonic wars, came up for sale in June, 1961, and

was bought by Texas oil millionaire, Mr Charles Wrightsman, for £140,000. A public outcry followed against the sale of British art treasures abroad, and a we<.k later Mr Wrightsman offered the Goya to the National Gallery. It was bought by the Government and put on public display in August. Three weeks later; it was stolen in a daring night raid —the first at the gallery in 137 years.

On September 1 Reuter’s office in London received an anonymous ransom letter demanding that £140,000 be paid to charity for the return of the painting, and three 'ays later a telephone call promising the return of the Goya if £50,000 was paid to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Over the years other letters and telephone calls followed to other agencies and newspapers, but the gallery directors repeatedly refused to make a bargain, although offering a £5OOO reward for information leading to recovery of the picture.

In March this year the “Daily Mirror” made a frontpage “sporting offer” plea to the thief to return it, and on May 21 received an anonymous letter enclosing a ticket for a left luggage office in Birmingham. Police raced to the office—and recovered the picture undamaged. It had been deposited there 17 days earlier by a man giving his name as Bloxham.