STOLEN ART TREASURES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 May 1928, Page 11

STOLEN ART TREASURES

arrest by the Berlin police of a well-known art dealer, following the disappearance of. a valuable altar piece •from a Bavarian castle, indicates that there is still a lucrative market for stolen antiques. The thieves who the other day rifled the chateau of the Marquis de Vallerov, near Meru, in France, were very likely aware of this fact when they decamped with £SOOO worth of tapestries and two valuable portraits of Mme. de Maintenon.

During the past 20 years pictures and other art objects worth hundreds of thousands of pounds have been stolen, very few of which have ever been recovered, and with the steadily'growing interest in antiques generally there is little doubt that certain collectors have no scruples in purchasing fine pictures and other objects well knowing them to have been stolen. . The whole art world was astounded some years back by the disclosures in connection with the depredations of the French crime syndicate known as the Thomas gang. Antoine Thomas—a Jekyll and Hyde personality—carried on his business as a merchant by day, being a member of one of the most respected families in the French town of Clermont-Ferrand, while 'by night he denuded French museums and churches of their liuest art treasures.

Head of a syndicate which included his brother Francois, his friend Faure, and his neighbour Dufay, an antiquary, he ran a regularly organised system and claimed to have receivers among the large dealers of good repute in Paris, London and New York.

Through his activities the French market was flooded with Gothic antiques, which had often been replaced by cleverly executed copies. His most important theft was the Crown of St. Michael, from Mont St. Michael, valued at £20,000, while another important acquisition was the famous Ambazac Shrine, worth £IO,OOO. This last, he boasted, he removed in daylight and offered in London for £I2OO.

A bust of St. Beaudine, stolen from the Church of St. Npctaire, valued at £2400, was discovered in a cask in a cellar rented by Thomas ready packed for shipment to Rio de Janeiro, while the police received anonymously a package containing a. statue stolen from the church of St. Sauvetat.

Thomas boasted that in two years he had made a profit of £BO,OOO, and only confesesd to save the name of the woman he loved. The gang, operating by night, covered great distances in highspeed motor cars, returning to ClermontFoTrand by daylight. This master crook’s usual procedure was to allow himself to be locked in

WHERE THEY GO

the place to be robbed, letting his conj federates enter at nightfall. As the I master mind, lie received a sentence of ! six years ’ penal servitude, his aceom- ! pi ices each getting off with two years, j Few were aware when it was sold in 11020 for the remarkable sum of £00,900 j that Romney’s portrait of Mrs Daven-. port was nearly secured by one of these expert art thieves. Leaving his London flat unoccupied, Sir William BromleyDavenport, the owner of the picture, had it sent to liis seat in Cheshire, another picture being substituted. Immediately after his departure bur* glai's entered' the flat and Tipped the substituted picture from its frame, and nothing has been heard of' it since. There is little doubt that the thieves intended 'to secure the famous Romney. The famous M.S. known aft the. Cardigan Chaucer, stolen from the late Lady Cardigan’s seat, Dean Park, by a Belgian refugee, was only recovered nine years afterwards, when it was found in a college library near New York.

Quite accidentally, a member of the family happened to see a short paragraph regarding it in a Scandinavian paper, and inquiries showed that it was tirst sold in London for £SO, purchased by a New York buyer for £SSO, and resold to the college for £4OOO. It was, of course, handed back, and later appeared at Sotheby’s rooms. That great collector, the late Mr Picrpont Morgan, was once the victim of one of these art thieves. He purchased the famous cope stolen from the Ascoli Cathedral from a London dealer who had received it in the ordinary course of business. When its history ivns discovered Mr Morgan at oncei presented it to its rightful owners, the Italian Government.

The thefts of the Gainsborough Duchess from Aguew’s gallery on the same day that it had been purchased at Christie’s for £10,500, and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre, both of which pictures were fortunately recovered, are too familiar to need recapitulation.

But the theft of ten pictures from the collection of the Earl 6f Suffolk some years back is not so well known. After their disapeparancc nothing was heard of them for several years until two, one a Leonardo, were found in a pawnbroker’s shop, having been pawned for £6. Another, a Guido, was found hanging in a public bar. The thief proved to be a former valet of the earl, who was employed as a War Office messenger.

Many books pictures, and rare objects are sold in London with the proviso that the transaction be kept secret, and the art thieves are apparently aware of this practice and act accordingly.