PRICELESS WORKS OF ART STOLEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13876, 13 April 1907, Page 14

PRICELESS WORKS OF ART STOLEN.

AMAZING TIIEPT IN LONDON. BOOTY VALUED AT OYER £50,000. One of the most daring and amazing burglaries in the whale history of modern crime was carried .out, with astonishing success, in the early 'hours of the morning of February 13 at the handsome residence of Mr Charles Wertheimer, the renowned art connoisseur, in Norfolk street, Park lane, London. Some audacious and enterprising thieves mysteriously gained entrance to the house and decamped with ;i haul of treat value. Though surrounded by whole batteries of burglar alarms, the thieves managed to avoid disturbing any one of them while they calmly carved art treasures from their ■frames and gathered together immensely valuable snuffboxes and oilier articles of vertu. Then just, before six they softly descended the stairs, and opening the front door gently stole out—and. disappeared. And with them disappeared art treasures worth £50,000!

By opening that front door, however, they 6et in motion a perfect hurricane of burglar alarms, and in an instant the entire household, led by the butler and l Mr Wertheimer, in their night attire, sprang out of bed and ran downstairs, but only to find the front door open. The intruders had completely vanished.

Filled with art treasures of enormous value, Mr Wertheimer's mansion is one of the finest among the many notable houses in Park lane. Pictures which have made the name of Wertheimer known everywhere are displayed around its walls. Costly jewellery and antique articles of vertu are treasured in every room. It is, in short, an ideal homo for a wealthy connoisseur, and a vdritable Aladdin's Palace to an enterprising burglar. . Realising this, Mr Wertheimer had 'resonant burglar alarms fitted to every door and window. To enter the house when the residents were in bed and the alarms were ready for action was to invito disaster at. the outset. But those were burglars of unusual audacity, and it is believed that by some moans they secreted themselves in the house during the evening, before the alarms were adjusted, and lay low till the household had retired.

When not a sound was. to fco heard in [ i tho house, and the place was wrapped in darkness, the depredators stole forth from their hiding-place, and began to ransack the place. Tho drawing room, a fine apartment, looking acrcss Park lane to Hyde Park—a salon probably without a- parallel in london—was the .first room to which thoy turned their attention. Warily picking their way around the gorgeous furniture, laden with china and other treasure?, they mercilessly attacked tho old masters, which aro known to every artist and collector in Europe and America. They ignored "Beauty and (ho Arts," a hugo canvas, by Romney, and they passed by several others by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hoppnor, and other great masters. But when thoy caino to two smaller pictures— :each about 24iu by 38in, they deliberately carved the canvascs out of the frame with an old ( table-knife, and theso aro the two pictures which they took away with them. Tho pictures are: A portrait of Nancy Parsons, by Gainsborough; a portrait of tho Hon. Mrs Charles Yorkc, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Tlio Gainsborough, a Morning Leader representative was informed, is worth abr '.t £15,000 and tho Reynolds about £5000. Instead of the,cuts being clean mid sharp, tho handiwork was so clumsy that jagged frayed edges of the canvas were left just inside tho frame; in fact, oil ono side of the Gainsborough quite 2in of jagged edgo was lett. A third picture, by Reynolds—a portrait of Mrs Froude, nee Hurrell, —was partly cut away, but; as it was difficult of access it was allowed to remain, badly damaged. A fourth picture in the same group—a Reynolds portrait of Nelly O'Bricnt—was left unscathed. Next they turned their attentions-to tho smoking-room, which adjoins tho drawing room. And hero was found French gold snuff-boxes, some of them worth £10C0, and some miniature portraits handsomely mounted. The marauders emptied the case. The articles missing from this room con- | sist of:—Twclvo gold enamelled snuffboxes of the Louis XVI period; five gold enamelled snuff-boxes of the Louis .XV period; a Louis XIV eold enamelled watch; miniature; set in brilliants, of a lady playing a guitar; circular miniature, framed in gold, of a lady sitting upon a sofa. The value of this handful of treasures' is estimated to be about £30,000 —which brings up tho total value of the plunder to some £50,000,—ami, as tlisy will bo far more easy to dispose of than tho pitoures, the police aro hoping, through thorn, to eventually get .some traeo of the criminals. Singularly enough, the burglars failed lo locale 'the valuable diamonds and other precious stones lying near to hand, which wou'.d have yielded o'much greater harvest. The' theft naturally recalls tho great. Gainslwough. robbery of 1876. when the portrait of the "Duchess of Devonshire" was stolon from Messrs Agnow's Bond street gallcrv, and vanished for 25 years, at the end of which timo it was restored in a. manner almost as mysteriojis as its disappearance. Tho robbery was committed by one of the most daring gangs in criminal hisloyv. The leader, a man known as Adam VVirth, forced a window and cut (ho painting neatly from the . frame. Though the difficulties in the way of sellinn',the stolen picture proved insurmountable. it was not till 1901 that t.ho truth camo out. The old age of Wirth led to mysterious negotiations with tho. firm of Agnew, as tho result of which Mr C. Morland Agnew went to America, and was able to bring "tho stolen Duchess" back to Bond street practically uninjured.