Italian pensioner awarded ownership of Gauguin stolen from London flat
Rome authorities declare Italian pensioner can keep £28 million Gauguin masterpiece stolen from London flat of Marks and Spencer heiress more than 40 years ago
A Carabinieri stands next to the two paintings stolen in London in the 1970s by French artist Paul Gauguin "Fruits sur une table ou nature au petit chien", (L) and Pierre Bonnard "La femme aux deux fauteuils"
An Italian pensioner who unknowingly acquired a Gauguin masterpiece after it
was stolen from a London flat more than 40 years ago has been awarded
ownership of the painting, which is estimated to be worth £28 million (35
million euros) by Rome authorities.
The man, who has requested anonymity out of fear that the painting could
attract thieves, now plans to sell it and hopes his life will be transformed
after decades of working gruelling night shifts in a Fiat factory.
The pensioner bought the 1889 Gauguin painting, entitled "Fruits on a
table or still life with a small dog", at an auction in Turin in 1975,
along with a work by another French artist, Pierre Bonnard, entitled "Woman
with two armchairs", now thought to be worth around 600,000 euros.
Identified only as Nicolo, he plans to take his wife on the honeymoon they
could never afford – a journey between Trieste, in Italy's north-east, and
Vienna.
"I'm already in negotiations over the sale of the Gauguin," the
70-year-old told La Repubblica newspaper. "Lots of private collectors
have contacted me and I'm considering the offers along with my family."
He said he would keep the Bonnard because it had great sentimental value.
He also plans to buy a farm outside his home town of Syracuse in Sicily and hopes to use the rest of his anticipated fortune to assure a comfortable future for his children and grandchildren.
He admitted that it had been "a stroke of luck" that he had bought the paintings, which auctioneers had told him were worthless "rubbish" 40 years ago.
"Maybe I had an intuition. I just liked them. When I took them home I said to myself, 'I don't care who painted them, I find them beautiful,'" he said.
The paintings were originally owned by Mathilda Marks, an heiress to the Marks and Spencer empire, but were stolen by con men from the flat she shared with her American husband in Chester Terrace, near Regent's Park in London, in 1970.
The thieves smuggled the paintings by train through France, intending to enter Italy, but panicked while waiting to cross the border and left them on a train heading towards Turin.
They were found by railway inspectors and languished for years in a dusty lost property office before being put up for auction by Italy's national railway network in 1975.
The Fiat worker, who regularly attended the railway auctions as a hobby, bought the two masterpieces for 45,000 lire – just £19 in today's money.
Not realising how valuable they were, he hung them on the wall of his kitchen, first in Turin and later, after he retired, at his home in Syracuse.
It was the curiosity of his son, who had a keen interest in art history, that eventually made him think that the paintings might be more than worthless daubings.
By comparing a dedication on the Gauguin painting with examples of the artist's handwriting, they realised that they had a masterpiece by one of the world's best known artists on their hands.
They contacted a special unit of the Italian police that deals with art and antiquities, who along with art experts confirmed earlier this year that the works were by Gauguin and Bonnard.
The two paintings were then sequestered by the police, who set about trying to establish their rightful ownership.
They liaised with the Metropolitan Police in London to try to discover whether anyone in the UK might have a legitimate claim to the artworks.
But Mrs Marks and her American husband, Terence Kennedy, had no children and no claimants came forward.
"I acquired the painting in good faith and that has been recognised by the authorities in Rome," Nicolo said.
The decision to award the paintings to the pensioner was made by a court in Rome, based on information provided by a special unit of the Carabinieri police that specialises in art and antiquities.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said that had any claimants in the UK come forward, the information would have been passed to the Italian police.
But none did, so the force had no objections to the paintings being returned to the ex-factory worker.#
Backstory:
http://arthostage.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/stolen-art-watch-italian-law-used-to.html
Mr Keane (seen in the ITV programme Auction Party in 2010) said police were examining CCTV footage from the night in question
He also plans to buy a farm outside his home town of Syracuse in Sicily and hopes to use the rest of his anticipated fortune to assure a comfortable future for his children and grandchildren.
He admitted that it had been "a stroke of luck" that he had bought the paintings, which auctioneers had told him were worthless "rubbish" 40 years ago.
"Maybe I had an intuition. I just liked them. When I took them home I said to myself, 'I don't care who painted them, I find them beautiful,'" he said.
The paintings were originally owned by Mathilda Marks, an heiress to the Marks and Spencer empire, but were stolen by con men from the flat she shared with her American husband in Chester Terrace, near Regent's Park in London, in 1970.
The thieves smuggled the paintings by train through France, intending to enter Italy, but panicked while waiting to cross the border and left them on a train heading towards Turin.
They were found by railway inspectors and languished for years in a dusty lost property office before being put up for auction by Italy's national railway network in 1975.
The Fiat worker, who regularly attended the railway auctions as a hobby, bought the two masterpieces for 45,000 lire – just £19 in today's money.
Not realising how valuable they were, he hung them on the wall of his kitchen, first in Turin and later, after he retired, at his home in Syracuse.
It was the curiosity of his son, who had a keen interest in art history, that eventually made him think that the paintings might be more than worthless daubings.
By comparing a dedication on the Gauguin painting with examples of the artist's handwriting, they realised that they had a masterpiece by one of the world's best known artists on their hands.
They contacted a special unit of the Italian police that deals with art and antiquities, who along with art experts confirmed earlier this year that the works were by Gauguin and Bonnard.
The two paintings were then sequestered by the police, who set about trying to establish their rightful ownership.
They liaised with the Metropolitan Police in London to try to discover whether anyone in the UK might have a legitimate claim to the artworks.
But Mrs Marks and her American husband, Terence Kennedy, had no children and no claimants came forward.
"I acquired the painting in good faith and that has been recognised by the authorities in Rome," Nicolo said.
The decision to award the paintings to the pensioner was made by a court in Rome, based on information provided by a special unit of the Carabinieri police that specialises in art and antiquities.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said that had any claimants in the UK come forward, the information would have been passed to the Italian police.
But none did, so the force had no objections to the paintings being returned to the ex-factory worker.#
Backstory:
http://arthostage.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/stolen-art-watch-italian-law-used-to.html
TV antiques expert's £200,000 collection of vintage watches, jewellery and diamonds stolen by gang of thieves in balaclavas
- Tom Keane's antiques business was robbed by a gang of thieves
- Expert has appeared on Bargain Hunt and Cash in the Attic
- Stole contents of a jewellery cabinet from Oxfordshire business
A television
antiques expert told of his anger yesterday after thieves escaped with
up to £200,000 worth of watches, diamonds and jewellery in a ram raid on
his business.
Tom
Keane, who has featured in programmes such as Cash in the Attic,
Bargain Hunt and Dickinson's Real Deal, said a masked and gloved gang
broke in to the village antiques centre in the early hours of the
morning.
The
four-strong gang - all wearing balaclavas - were caught on CCTV
attempting to drag a safe off the premises using the stolen Land Rover
they used as a getaway car.
Tom Keane, an antiques expert who has
appeared on Cash in the Attic and Bargain Hunt, had his business
plundered by raiders wearing balaclavas
They
escaped with the contents of a jewellery cabinet in the reception area
of his Oxfordshire business, The Swan at Tetsworth - based in a
converted coaching inn - during the early hours of Friday.
Yesterday
Mr Keane, who lives in West London, told how police missed the gang by
just three minutes after they were automatically summoned to the village
by the antique centre's alarm system.
He said: 'One glass cabinet had over £100,000 of watches in it.
'The police
have told us that this is the fifth or sixth antiques business to be hit
across Berkshire and Oxfordshire in the last few months - although we
did not find out about the other raids until after we were hit.
'It
is organised crime. The gang stole the Land Rover from North
Oxfordshire and dumped it up the road after the raid.' Mr Keane, a
father-of-three and grandfather of five, said he was still working to
establish exactly what had been taken in the raid.
'Smoke
bombs went off as part of the security system and there is stuff all
over the floor', he said, adding that Rolex watches from the 1970s and
1980s, jewellery and diamonds were known to be amongst the haul taken.
The auctioneer said the items stolen had a combined value of between £150,000 and £200,000
Some of the timepieces were solid gold with custom-made diamond faces, he said.
He estimated the total value of the items to be between £150,000 to £200,000.
He
said officers were now studying CCTV of the raid, as well as earlier
footage from the system to see if any potential gang members can be
identified 'casing out' the premises.
'We have already found images of a man in a balaclava looking through the windows two nights before the raid', he added.
Thames
Valley Police spokesman said: 'We were called after an alarm went off. A
side door was forced and a glass cabinet containing jewellery and
antiques was smashed. Items are missing.'
Mr
Keane has spent 25 years in the antiques business, beginning as a car
boot sale trader before eventually taking over Chiswick Auctions in west
London.
He
specialises in art and antiques from the 17th to the 20th Century and
acts as a consultant valuer for television companies and clients
including interior designers and dealers.
The
Swan at Tetsworth, near Thame, represents 80 antique dealers in 40
showrooms of top quality English, French and country furniture, as well
as smaller decorative antiques.
Pink Panthers' female member jailed ten years
Pink Panthers' female member jailed ten years
Verbier, where the convicted woman rented a chalet for accomplice robbers to hide out. Photo: Switzerland Tourism
- Swiss cops nab diamond theft suspect from China (13 Sep 14)
- Swiss court jails 'Pink Panther' for seven years (25 Oct 13)
- Serbs held for Geneva watch and jewel heists (25 Oct 13)
- ‘Pink Panthers’ robber sentenced to nine years (19 Sep 13)
The Serb woman,
regarded as a “professional criminal”, was convicted of participating
in five armed robberies of boutiques in the cantons of Vaud and Valais
between 2009 and 2011, according to media reports.
An economist by training, she played a key role in all the robberies, which resulted in losses of several million francs’ worth of jewellery, the court heard.
In the case of the Verbier holdup, she rented a chalet in the upscale Valais resort to shelter armed crooks who made off with booty valued at close to four million francs ($4.16 million) from a boutique in the village on November 3rd 2009, the ATS news agency said.
Afterward she planned, supported and physically participated in other heists from shops at Crans-Montana (another ski resort area in Valais), Lausanne and Rolle in the canton of Vaud, the news agency said.
The corpulent woman, who went by the nickname “Monstro”, admitted her role in the robbery of a Lausanne jewellery shop on April 20th 2011 and another one in Rolle In July the same year but otherwise provided confusing testimony, 24heures newspaper reported.
She was arrested on August 8th 2011 as she was planning another robbery and has been kept in preventive detention ever since.
An accomplice, also a Serb, who is currently imprisoned in France, which refuses to extradite him. was sentenced in absentia to four and a half years in jail, 24heures said.
The woman’s court appearance took place under high security.
In May 2013, a couple of members of the Pink Panthers gang made a sensational escape from a prison near Lausanne with three other prisoners.
Two of the inmates were rounded up the next day and one of the Pink Panthers, a 47-year-old Macedonian with French citizenship, was later arrested in August at his home near Avignon.
The other two escapees, including one alleged member of the gang, remained at large.
The Pink Panthers emerged from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to become the most successful jewel thieves in the world, AFP reported last year.
According to Interpol, they have since 1999 snatched jewels with a value in excess of 330 million euros ($440 million) in heists that are often executed with breathtaking speed and precision.
They gained their nickname with a raid on a London branch of Graff Diamonds in 2003, in which two of them posed as wealthy would-be customers, persuading staff to open doors for them before helping themselves to diamonds worth millions.
Although one of the robbers was overpowered at the scene and another later arrested, only a fraction of the diamonds were recovered, one of them hidden in a pot of face cream.
That was reminiscent of a scene from the 1975 film "The Return of the Pink Panther" and resulted in a nickname that the gang members themselves adopted, wearing pink shirts for a subsequent raid in Zurich.
An economist by training, she played a key role in all the robberies, which resulted in losses of several million francs’ worth of jewellery, the court heard.
In the case of the Verbier holdup, she rented a chalet in the upscale Valais resort to shelter armed crooks who made off with booty valued at close to four million francs ($4.16 million) from a boutique in the village on November 3rd 2009, the ATS news agency said.
Afterward she planned, supported and physically participated in other heists from shops at Crans-Montana (another ski resort area in Valais), Lausanne and Rolle in the canton of Vaud, the news agency said.
The corpulent woman, who went by the nickname “Monstro”, admitted her role in the robbery of a Lausanne jewellery shop on April 20th 2011 and another one in Rolle In July the same year but otherwise provided confusing testimony, 24heures newspaper reported.
She was arrested on August 8th 2011 as she was planning another robbery and has been kept in preventive detention ever since.
An accomplice, also a Serb, who is currently imprisoned in France, which refuses to extradite him. was sentenced in absentia to four and a half years in jail, 24heures said.
The woman’s court appearance took place under high security.
In May 2013, a couple of members of the Pink Panthers gang made a sensational escape from a prison near Lausanne with three other prisoners.
Two of the inmates were rounded up the next day and one of the Pink Panthers, a 47-year-old Macedonian with French citizenship, was later arrested in August at his home near Avignon.
The other two escapees, including one alleged member of the gang, remained at large.
The Pink Panthers emerged from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to become the most successful jewel thieves in the world, AFP reported last year.
According to Interpol, they have since 1999 snatched jewels with a value in excess of 330 million euros ($440 million) in heists that are often executed with breathtaking speed and precision.
They gained their nickname with a raid on a London branch of Graff Diamonds in 2003, in which two of them posed as wealthy would-be customers, persuading staff to open doors for them before helping themselves to diamonds worth millions.
Although one of the robbers was overpowered at the scene and another later arrested, only a fraction of the diamonds were recovered, one of them hidden in a pot of face cream.
That was reminiscent of a scene from the 1975 film "The Return of the Pink Panther" and resulted in a nickname that the gang members themselves adopted, wearing pink shirts for a subsequent raid in Zurich.
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