CRIME
Painting Returned To NYC Gallery Some 60 Years After It Was Stolen After Turning Up In UK
ART RECOVERY INTERNATIONAL
A painting was recovered in the U.K. and returned to a New York gallery some 60 years after it was stolen along with numerous other works, Art Recovery International announced Tuesday.
Flower Market Madeleine, a painting by Edouard-Leon Cortés, was one of more than 3,000 works of art stolen from the Herbert Arnot Gallery in New York City over the course of 12 years in the 1950s and 1960s.
According to Art Recovery International, Arnot Gallery manager and salesman Louis Edelman left his job in 1966 to open his own rival gallery. It was later discovered he had spent years selling Arnot Gallery’s paintings under his own name, amounting to more than $1 million.
Edelmen was eventually arrested in Chicago by the FBI. He was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000 after being convicted of transporting stolen artworks across state lines, but most of the stolen works were never recovered.
In the years since, some of the stolen works have popped up for sale in galleries and auction houses all over the world.
Flower Market Madeleine was offered for sale this year by Carnes Fine Art in Mawdesley, England. Art Recovery International founder Christopher A. Marinello spent several months investigating the sale.
Carnes acquired the painting from Capes Dunn auctions near Manchester last year. It had been consigned to Capes Dunn last year by a Cheshire estate, which confirmed it was acquired from the MacConnal-Mason Gallery in London.
“We are very grateful to Bradley Carnes, Capes Dunn, and their vendor for releasing this stolen painting unconditionally to the Arnot Gallery. While in this instance, we were able to convince many of the parties to reimburse the other, eventually there will be those who are out of luck. I cannot stress enough the importance of performing due diligence and authentication checks which would have uncovered this stolen painting decades earlier, Marinello said in a statement.
“Anyone buying or selling a painting by Edouard-Leon Cortés or Antoine Blanchard is advised to check with the Arnot Gallery for proper authentication. We have been recovering one or two pictures per year from this 60-year-old theft and were never going to give up until every last one is returned, Marinello said.
The Arnot Gallery first opened in Austria in 1863, hosting pieces by Egon Schiele, Claude Monet, and Edouard-Leon Cortés. The gallery was forced out of Austria when the Nazis rose to power, and moved to New York City renamed as the Herbert Arnot Gallery.
TMX contributed to this article.
