DAMAGE TO PAINTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 10

DAMAGE TO PAINTING

UNSUCCESSFUL INQUIRIES

Although active inquiries have been made, and are still being made, by the Detective Office concerning the slashing of the oil painting "May Morning" at the National Art Gallery last Thursday, they have not so far led to the detection of the person responsible or to the recovery of the missing section of the painting. There is, unfortunately, very little upon which the detectives can work. The act of vandalism was apparently done some time, possibly 1J hours, before those in charge of the Art Gallery were aware of what had happened. The damage to the picture was reported at approximately 3 p.m. Several persons were working in the Gallery up to 1 p.m. rearranging the pictures, and when they left everything was in order. One attendant was on duty, but it is quite impossible for him to keep every room of the Gallery under surveillance at the same time. As the slashing might have been done at any time during the whole period, the task of obtaining an accurate description of every person in the Gallery during that time is almost impossible. A number of descriptions have been obtained, but in most cases they are too general to be of very much value for purposes of identification. If bona fide visitors to the Art Gallery during the period were to give the Detective Office their full co-operation, the task of making inquiries would be facilitated.

The nature of the offence makes the task of identification doubly difficult. If investigations are being made into a clever burglary or forgery case, even a general description, in conjunction with police records and a detective's local knowledge, will nearly always give a valuable lead. It is not thought very likely that the offence at the Art Gallery was committed by a person figuring in police records or otherwise familiar to the detective force. It may have been premeditated or it may have been committed on the spur of the moment, but the reason for it, or the' motive, is generally associated with the nature of the damage done and the subject of the painting—that of a girl nude to the waist.