"OLD MASTERS" STOLEN.

Shannon News, 18 May 1926, Page 4

"OLD MASTERS" STOLEN.

FOUR CONSTABLE PICTURES. A sensational theft of valuable pictures from the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy was recently engaging the < attention of Scotland Yard, working in conjunction with the London City Police. The thieves, who showed extraordinary enterprise and daring, had unscrewed framed pictures from the wall of the Gallery, and made a haul consisting of four pictures by John Constable, the famous painter of the English school, which are valued nominally at £2OOO. Whoever was responsible for carrying out this exploit, did so without, giving 'rise to suspicion, and left the building unnoticed. It is believed, howeves, that the thief, or thieves, accomplished his, or their, object during the hours when the exhibition was open to the public. The four missing pictures were carefully chosen by the thief, or thieves, from many others, for there are old masters all the way up the. walls of the winding staircase, which is a long one leading to the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. This is on the top floor of the building. In the entrance-hall there are always porters and cloak-room attendants on duty between 10 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. During the night the academy is patrolled by a fireman. Discovery oir the Thefts. When the porter whoso duty it is to look after this part of. the building went to the Diploma Gallery at 10.45 a.m., he noticed that four gap* were made in the group. The four pictures had been placed two on each side of the entrance which leads up to the door of the gallery. This entrance is five or six feet deep, and many pictures and draw-

ings arc hanging on its walls. The pictures had not been wrenched from their positions, but the screws holding them in place had been removed, and the wall, consequently, undamaged. This operation may have been carried out at one time, or the thief, or thieves, may have done the unscrewing process a little at a time. Directly the robbery was discovered the officials communicated with Scotland Yard. A search for finger prints was made, and photographs taken. It is understood that tho conclusion arrived at is that the pictures were stolen during the time the exhibition was open, and not by a nocturnal intruder. Though, they are small, their gilt frames, which have vanished with them, are fairly cumbersome. It is almost inconceivable that one persons could pass unnoticed through the entrance hall with so large a parcel as the four 1 pictures would make. They are stated to have been the gift of the Constable family, and, therefore, absolutely authentic. / "Work of a Madman." The pictures were .particularly Interesting to artists and students, because they showed the first ideas of the master from which he later evolved the finished works. Most of those in the Royal Academy are sky effects, some of them mere suggestions of a picture. Constable was born in 1776, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in ISO2. He was made an associate in 1819, and a full academican ten years later. He died in 1837.

"I can only think that the theft is the work of a madman," remarked Sir Frank Dicksee, president of the Royal Academy. Undoubtedly the pictures have . a high market value, but only if they are declared to be Constables—an unwise proceeding, to say the least of it, for a thief. The whole thing is incomprehensible to me. There are no detectives, usually, in the Diploma Gallery, but when there is an exhibition, as there is at present, detectives patrol the galleries." Mr Lamb, the secretary to the Royal Academy, pointed out that the attendant who patrols the galleries, goes round the Diploma Gallery to sec that it is empty, and then places a small wooden movable barrier across the entrance to the hall. "It seems to be highly probable," he continued, ''that the thief or thives,, watching for this opportunity while the crowds visiting the Sargent Exhibition were going backward and forward through the hall, slipped to the Diploma Gallery entrance, pushed aside the barrier, and went to the pictures they had chosen. One would probably look over the balustrade to give the alarm, if necessary, while the unscrewing from the wall of the pictures would only be a matter of a few moments." Previous Similar Theft. The robbery followed a similar theft carried cut a few days previously, when a picture by Birket Foster, R.A., entitled "The Hen Coop," and valued at about £3O, was stolen from the City Corporation Art Gallery at the Guildhall. This picture was also unscrewed from the wall. The canvas is a small one, ajid could easily have been hidden under a loose-fitting overcoat, but the gen-erally-accepted theory is that it was carried away in an attache case. Sir Alfred Temple, the curator of th« gallery, stated that the theft was really a comparatively trivial one. "The picture," he added, "is 7in. by Oiin. I very much doubt whether its present possessor, even if he finds a market for it, will realise more than £lO on the sale." Recently another pfcture disappeared from the Bethnall Green Museum, and this was returned just as mysteriously as it disappeared a few days ago. It is 14 years since the Royal Academy suffered a like loss of three miniatures. They were, how-J ever, returned.

Among the most sensational picture thefts of the past are that of Gainsborough's. "Nancy Parsons," and Sir Joshua Reynolds's "The Hon. Mrs Charles Yorke," in February, 1907, from the Park Lane residence of the late Mr Charles Wer-

theimcr. The pictures were worth £ls*ooo and £6OOO respectively. They were cut from their frames, and have never been discovered. Almost as mysterious was the raiding of Messrs Agnew's Galleries in Bond Street, W., In 187 G, when "The Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was stolen and taken to America. It was recovered in a dramatic manner in New York in J 901. A parcel was brought to the late Mr Morland Agnew's apartment in Chicago. In the paper wrapping he discovered the\ 25-year-missing masterpiece. Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was discovered in, Florence two years after it had been stolon. Other Notable Thefts. Other picture thefts include the following:— , 1915.—£5000 worth of pictures stolen from the Marlborough Galleries, St. James's. 1923. —Two Gainsboroughs cut from frames at Ben ham Park, near Newbury—probable value, £50,000. Later recovered in London. 11)23.—400-yoar-old painting of the Earl of Essex stolen from Ashlord Hall, near Ludlow; recovered, but irreparably damaged. 1925.—£100,000 worth of art treasures stolen from Mr Martin Weinschenck at HollyAvood, California. 1925. —Pour old masters, value £7OOO, stolen from Bath.

The chief difficulty of the picture thief is that his market is restricted. Few people will buy stolen masterpieces, and his only chance to make profit is either to keep the pictures for years, or else to sell them to a connoisseur who covets them for the ,ioy of possession rather than for re-sale. They are useless to the common receiver or "fence." A cablegram published on March 11, just aftr the mail left England, slated that three of the. Constables, as well as that taken from the Guildhall, had been returned through the editor of the "Daily Mail."