GREAT ART THEFTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

GREAT ART THEFTS.

AUDACIOUS ROBBERIES.

(By “

“Scriblerus.”)

The year’s biffsest theft from a London mansion Is the robbery of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of tlie first Countess of Minto, and also a string of pearls and other jewellery, a total value Of £32.000, from the house of the Earl of Minto in Mayfair.

Each of the works of a groat artist is something unique, ’(fleeting the momentary influences of his life and possessing the inalienable hall-mark of his genius. No two are alike. It would be thought, then, that a stolen masterpiece such as Reynolds’ “Countess of Minto” would be a useless impediment and a dangerous clue to searchers rather than valuable booty.' For as soon as such work appears in one' of the sale rooms and is conned by the unerring eyes of experts aided by X rays, there can be no hope of subterfuge. Such a light may not be hidden under a bushel.

The precautions taken by thieves- to disguise stolen jewels are well known. Great stones have been torn from their settings and carved into minor gems. This practice of desecrating objects of beauty luckily is not easily applicable to pictures, although there are recorded instances of it being done. The fact remains, however, that valuable pictures are often stolen, frequently with a view to extracting a substantial ransom from the owner. The only consolation is to be found iir the capacity of most owners of rare old masters to pay up and forget.' The Reynolds’ theft suggests that of the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, by Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds’ rival and enemy. The picture, which had been sold, was being exhibited by Messrs Agnew when thieves cut the canvas from the frame with a sharp knife and fastening’ brown paper to the face of it to prevent cracking when rolled up, escaped unseen, notwithstanding the fact that the operation must have taken a considerable time.

A somewhat similar case, reminiscent of the mutilation of large precious stones, was Alurillo’s superb painting of St. Anthony in the cathedral at Seville. It is the master’s largest work, .and is, it is said, “so finely painted that the birds have been seen trying to alight upon the table in the lefthand corner of the picture below the rosy horse-shoe of cherubim, to pick at the flowers.” The Duke of Wellington took a great liking to. .the picture and offered to buy it, covering it with gold ounces, a price equal to £36,000.

It was discovered on November 5, 1874, .that the supplicant figure of the good monk St. Anthony had been cut from the picture, the remainder being uninjured, and this despite the doubling of the wateh, augmented by two mastiffs, on account of two previous cathedral robberies. The portion taken was sufficient to form a complete picture. For a whole year no trace of the perpetrator of the outrage was found, although the Spanish Government speedily acquainted its representatives abroad. Some time afterwards the picture was offered for sale by a Spaniard to a New York dealer, who was informed that it was a A-lurillo. Tlie dealer, his suspicions aroused, proceeded to the' Spaniard’s rooms where he recognised it as the missing portion of the Seville Murillo. . Secretly .he gave notice to the Spanish Consul, for whom the picture was purchased for 250 dollars. The sacriligious rogue Garcia, who sold the picture and was also the thief, was arrested afterwards. The two portions were united skilfully and the grand masterpiece was reinstated amidst pompous religious festivities.

In. New Zealand there have been surprising art thefts. A landscape “Southward from Surrey Hills” in the Wellington Art Gallery has been taken twice and returned on the payment of a substantial ransom.

Perhaps, tlie most audacious art robbery the world has. known was that o-f Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘.'Mona Lisa,” or “La Gioconda,” from the Louvre, Paris, a few years ago.. No other work of art is better known, and this was clearly a case of ransom for it would have been impossible for such a picture to traverse the open markets undetected. But the effect on French art critics was marvellous. The Louvre without “La Gioconda” was like Venus masked. We are reminded of .Walter Pater’s beautiful purple patch in which he rhapsodises on the picture. “Hers is the head upon which all the ends of the world are come and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit little cell by cell of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of ambiguity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty into which the soul with all its maladies had passed. All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive .the outward form, animalism of Greece, lust of Rome, the reverie of the Middle Age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins, of the ’Borgias. She is older than the rocks on which she sits; like the vampire she has been, dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave, and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of- Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Alary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes and ’lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged, the eyelids and hands. ...” And after all this it seems rather paltry to record that a thief garbed as a workman entered the Louvre in broad daylight and casually rolling up the picture, decamped unnoticed. One can imagine the unfathomable smile, with the faint touch of something mysterious and' sinister. That was the true comment, \ j. "• A .