A BIG HAUL

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2818, 5 October 1938, Page 8

A BIG HAUL

LONDON ART ROBBERY THEFT OF VALUABLE OILS WORK BY REYNOLDS STOLEN After inner doors had been found locked from the inside during the day it was discovered that burglars had made a big haul at the residence of Earl Winterton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Shillinglee Park, near Horsham, Essex. A maidservant who was unable to open one of the rooms sent for assistance; the door was forced, and it was found that an oil painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds had been cut from its frame. This painting (1764) is of the first Earl Winterton.

Also among the missing property is a miniature oil painting—only two inches by a inch and a-half—stated to be very valuable, a diamond snuff box, and a six-sided silver plate at quarter of an inch thick.

Even the gold ferrule on Lord Winterton’s walking stick is missing. Lord and Lady Winterton were staying at Eastbourne with the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire at the time of the burglary, which probably took place in the early hours of August 10, and only two or three members of the staff were in the house. Shutter Pierced

The butler found that a wooden shutter guarding a front hall window had been pierced, apparently with a brace and bit. The hole gave access to a bolt holding the shutter closed.

It is believed that only someone acquainted with the house from the inside would have knowon the exact spot at which to bore the hole.

Having entered the house through the window, the thieves, it is thought, locked the doors leading to the back of the house to guard against disturbance. They then removed the painting from its frame, collected the jewellery, and left through the drawing room window.

Lord Winterton’s Statement

Earl Winterton believes the theft to be the work of an expert directed by a connoisseur.

Besides the Reynolds portrait, he states that two others were, removed

from their frames hut were left undamaged. Like the missing picture, these two depicted a man in red. “Obviously,” said Earl Winterton, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. “the organiser of the raid had instructed the leader to look for a portrait of a a man in red with Reynold’s signature on the back. While he was thus occupied one or two other men removed a number of objects of little or no' intrinsic value. Among these were an old baby’s rattle and a number of medals presented to an ancestor of mine for planting trees. These looked like silver, but were, I believe, silver gilt. “I have every confidence that the picture will be retrieved. At presentday valuation of Reynold’s male subjects I estimate its worth at a bare £lOOO. With the excellence of modern international police arrangements I do not see how the thieves can dispose of it. The police authorities whom I have consulted say that most probably the men will sell it for a t 0 a ‘fence,’ who may keep i' "• - 10 to 1.5 years, or try to dispose

of 1' i’l the United States. In either case a picture like that would bc ; detected at once.”

Finger-prints found at Shillinglee have been examine,;! a t Scotland Yard.

Mr A. C. R, Carter, the well-known art connoisseur of the Daily Telegraph, states that art collectors everywhere may have difficulty in identifying this Reynolds because, besides never having been engraved, the portrait has apparently never been lent to any of the numerous winter exhibitions at Burlington House, begun in 1870. Very few professional connoisseurs, therefore, can know anything about the picture beyond the statements in the works on the art of Reynolds. Even the diligent writer, the late Algernon Graves, tells little about the portrait to render it recognisable at sight. It is known that Reynolds painted it in 1764.

“Indeed, Graves’s manuscript notes in my possession state that the first earl, then Baron Winterton,” writes Mr Carter, “sat to the painter in ‘August 1764,’ and that Reynolds received ‘fifty guineas’ for his work. “The portrait is a three-quarter length on a canvas 49in. by 391 in. but particulars of the costume worn are not vouchsafed. Reynolds painted it in his big studio in Leicester square, where he had been settled since 1760. As the Royal Academy was not founded until 1768, search will be made in vain , for the • portrait in the Academy’s records. “The rate, August.’ 1764, shows that

Reynolds must have painted the portrait just after his recovery from a very serious illness. Earlier in 1764 Reynolds had founded the famous ‘Literary Club,’ to give to his friend, Dr. Johnson, ‘endless opportunities of talking.’ Reynolds also painted the portrait of Lady Winterton in August, 1764, his charge being ‘seventy guineas.’ ” This is the fourth big art theft this year. In April five famous pictures, insured for £BB,OOO, were stolen from Chilham Castle, near Canterbury, the home of Sir Edmund Davis. They included a Rembrandt, two Gainsboroughs, a Reynolds and a Van Dyck. The Gainsboroughs were recovered. George Owen, a dealer of St. Paul’s road, Kennington, S.E., was sentenced at Maidstone Assizes on June 25 to five years’ imprisonment for receiving them. Mr Justice Humphreys described him as one of a gang of .dangerous criminals. Both at Chilham and Shillinglee the thieves were careful to remove the pictures from their panels without damaging them. In February, and again in May, at Alton Lodge, Roehampton, the home of Mr Claude Albo de Bernales, was entered by art thieves. Treasures believed to have been worth about £5OOO were stolen.

In November last burglars who broke into Sandon Hall, Stafford, residence of the Earl of Harrowby, stole 36 valuable miniatures.