A STOLEN PICTURE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10099, 26 July 1893, Page 5

A STOLEN PICTURE.

GAINSBOROUGH’S DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE. [Special to Press Association.] BRUSSELS, July 24.

Adam Wirth, a noted thief, at present undergoing a term of imprisonment in Louvain gaol, has confessed to the theft of Gainsborough’s portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, Wirth is now believed to have been concerned in the late Hatton Garden and Post Office robberies in London, and is also credited with having committed many audacious bank, jewellery, and other robberies on the Continent, in America and at Capetown, which have baffled the efforts of the police to bring the offender to justice. The picture was stolen for the sake of ransom money, which, however, the thief was unable to claim. The whereabouts of the picture is unknown.

This picture, which had already become famous for having been sold for 10,100 guineas (£10,605), the highest price ever paid at an auction for a portrait, was rendered still more so by having been stolen from the gallery in which it had only recently been placed for exhibition, known as the New British Institution, No. 39b, Old Bond street.

The following account was given at the time (1876) The greatest excitement arose in the neighbourhood when it, became known, on May 26, that this extraordinary and daring robbery had been committed. The large printed placards in the windows inviting attention to the picture were soon surrounded by little crowds, who read with no small astonishment the written notice that during the night some malicious person had cut the picture from the frame and stolen it. From enquiries made on the spot it waa found that the picture had been very neatly cut from the stretching frame after it had been removed from the gilt frame in which it hung against the wall, near the window above the doorway on the first floor. The stretching frame was seen leaning against a sofa opposite the now empty gilt frame, and it showed that no unpractised hand had operated upon the canvas, as the picture itself had been completely removed, leaving nothing but the clean cut canvas at the edges on which it had been mounted when lined. The gilt frame bad the nails simply bent back and not extracted, so that the thief or thieves lost no time in needless trouble. The apartment m which the picture was exhibited showed scarcely any marks of what had been done, beyond some crumpling of the drapery hung in front of the picture. This room is not more than 10ft square, having only one window opening into Bond street, the other being blocked and covered with cloth hangings like walls of the room. A passage opens on to it from the largo gallery where the water-colour drawings are hung belonging to Messrs Agnow. But the one window was found open about two feet, and on examining the load outside there was distinctly visible the mark 0" a nailed shoe. This window had no blind to it, consequently if any light had been used during the work of the thieves it would in all probability have been noticed by the policemen in the street, who were aware that no one resided in the house after the doors were closed and the premises left locked up for the night. It appears that a porter was employed by Messrs Agnaw to see to the fastenings of the doors, and that the same person waa entrusted with the opening of the doors in the morning. As far as is at present known, all the doors were found fastened as they had been left. The window, however, would enable the thief to drop his booty in the shape of a roll of very moderate size into the hands of a confederate, and the opportunity of doing this without the observation of the police would be a matter of tolerably easy accomplishment with the aid of others concerned in the plan. It is conjectured that some one, having entered the exhibition room as a visitor, contrived to secrete himself in some part of the premises, but, having succeeded in putting the picture into the hands of the other thief by the window, it is difficult to see how he could himself escape without detection, whether in the night by the window or after the place was opened in the morning. There are, however, two entrances to the house, one from the street, the other by a side door opening into a yard, through, which persons of various occupations pass to some stables and a shoeing forge. This side door is connected by a narrow and dark passage with the principal entrance ! from the street, so-that a parson might contrive to escape being seen here, and quietly slip out when the porter had unlocked the door and gone to attend to any other duty. These matters, however, are in the hands of the police, and, as we learn, that, with their advice, Messrs Agnew have offered the large reward of £IOOO for information leading to the recovery of the stolen picture, some speedy intelligence may be looked for. It mustba tolerably evident that such a robbery was not contrived with the view of selling the picture, as that would be a thing next to impossible, and the mere offer of it would be certain to bring the thieves to detection in almost any part of the world. It is very rarely that a robbery ot valuable pictures in this way has been attempted, and rarely, if ever, wo believe, without discovery ia the end. Many will remember how several pictures were cut from the frames and stolen from the Earl of Suffolk’s collection about twenty-five years ago. These the thieves were not able to turn into money, and at last they gave up the attempt, being compelled, in order to escape detection, to hide away their plunder under one of the arches of Blackfriars Bridge, where the pictures were at length discovered and restored to their owner. In another remarkable instance, which occurred about two years ago only, the miscreants who cut the figure of St Anthony from the great picture by Murillo, in the Cathedral of Seville, were caught in the attempt to sell the figure in New York, and convicted and punished. The picture has recently been completely and very ably restored, with the figure of the saint replaced. The famous “Vierge Couple” of Marshal Souit’s gallery was the picture from which it was said an officer cut the figures of the Virgin and Child before it bad been taken by the marshal as his prize. For many years the picture remained in the Soult Gallery with a modern Virgin and Child supplied in place of Murillo’s, and was sold in this state, eventually, by a moat felicitous piece of good fortune, coming into the possession of a gentleman who happened long before to have purchased the real Virgin and Child of Murillo belonging to it. In the present case it is to be hoped that a picture of such remarkable notoriety and interest will bo recovered uninjured, and the audacious thief or thieves brought to justice.