James Donovan told of surviving a car bomb in the London Sunday Mirror, August 8, 1999.
In his book Jan Vermeer (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962), Lawrence Gowing remarked that “everything of Vermeer is in the Beit Letter. “
The information about Vermeer’s widow selling Lady Writing a Letter to settle a debt with her baker—and the information that the debt, 617 florins, corresponded to roughly $80—was provided by the research staff at the National Gallery of Ireland.
The brief sketch of Vermeer’s life is based on Anthony Bailey’s Vermeer (New York: Henry Holt, 2001) and Norbert Schneider’s Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Cologne: Taschen, 2000). Robert Hughes noted that Vermeer left no written accounts of his life or his art; see “Shadows and Light,” Time, May 7, 2001. Bailey discussed the identity of Vermeer’s models on pp. 115-116.
Paul Johnson remarked on Vermeer’s long fall from favor; see Art: A New History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003, p. 379).
Thoré paid 500 francs, roughly $2,000 in today’s money, for Young Woman Standing at a Virginal. He paid roughly $16,000 in today’s dollars for Woman with a Pearl Necklace and roughly $8,000 for Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. See Frances Suzman Jowell, “Vermeer and Thoré-Burger: Recoveries of Reputation” in Gaskell and Jonker, eds., Studies in the History of Art, vol. 55 (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1998, pp. 35-58). The conversions from nineteenth-century prices to present-day dollars were provided by the Musée de la Monnaie de Paris.
Laura Cumming made the point that, in the days before museums and mass reproductions, artists might disappear from view; see her fine essay, “Only Here for the Vermeer,” in the Observer, May 27, 2001.
Sir Alfred Beit’s remark that “no amount of money” could compensate him for the loss of his paintings appeared in the New York Times on May 1, 1974, in an article headlined “Insurance Was Low on 19 Works of Art Stolen in Ireland.”
Paul Williams discussed Martin Cahill’s belief that he could sell stolen paintings to unscrupulous art collectors for “millions, countless millions” on a British television documentary called “The Fine Art of Crime” (Fulcrum Productions, 1998).
Chapter 11: Encounter in Antwerp
Rebecca West called the once-fashionable novelist Michael Arlen “every other inch a gentleman,” according to Victoria Glendinning’s biography of West. (The comment is sometimes attributed to Alexander Woollcott.)
Chapter 12: Munch
My account of Munch’s life and The Scream is based on J. P. Hodin’s Edvard Munch (London: Thames & Hudson, 1972), Poul Erik TØjner’s Munch in His Own Words (New York: Prestel, 2003), Reinhold Heller’s The Scream (New York: Viking, 1973), Mara-Helen Wood’s Edvard Munch: The Frieze of Life (London: National Gallery Publications, 1992), Monica Bohm-Duchen’s The Private Life of a Masterpiece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), and Stanley Steinberg and Joseph Weiss’s “The Art of Edvard Munch and Its Function in his Mental Life,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 3, 1954. The psychoanalytic speculation in Steinberg and Weiss is far-fetched (“the swirling red landscape may represent Munch’s dying mother”), but the compilation of biographical facts is useful.
My remark comparing Freud and Munch is a variant on an observation by Christopher Hume, who called Munch “the great liberator of the tormented Self” and wrote that “if Freud was its cartographer, Munch was the illustrator.” See “Munch Kitsch Makes a Fearful Image Safe,” Toronto Star, March 1, 1997.
Simon Winchester’s superb Krakatoa (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) is by far the best account of the volcano’s eruption and its ramifications (including the story of the Pough-keepsie firemen, as well as countless others). The link with The Scream is perhaps the only Krakatoa connection that eluded Winchester.
Chapter 17: Russborough House Redux
The best account of Rose Dugdale’s career, and the theft of the Kenwood Vermeer in particular, was written by Luke Jennings. See “Every Picture Tells a Story,” London Evening Standard, December 28, 1999.
Chapter 18: Money Is Honey
Peter Wilson’s remark on ethics and auctions appeared in Robert Lacey, Sotheby’s: Bidding for Class (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998, p. 183).
The observation that the prices of art in the past do not match today’s prices and the Robert Hughes quotation beginning “one bought paintings for pleasure” come from a fascinating, two-part article by Robert Hughes. See “Art and Money,” New Art Examiner, October 1984 and November 1984.
Harold Sack’s remark that “money is honey” appeared in “Rewriting Auction Records,” New York Times, January 25, 1990. The art dealer who observed that some buyers wanted to spend $1 million was Arnold Glimcher. See Calvin Tomkins, “Irises,” The New Yorker, April 4, 1988.
S. N. Behrman noted in his brilliantly witty Duveen (New York: Random House, 1951, p. 293) that Joseph Duveen’s clients “preferred to pay huge sums.”
John Walker was quoted on “the cost per square inch” of Ginevra Benci; see William Grampp, Pricing the Priceless (New York: Basic Books, 1989, p. 25).
Christopher Burge was quoted on “a whole new set of prices” in “The Specter of the Billion Dollar Show,” Washington Post, June 9, 1988.
The story about Renoir trading a painting for a pair of shoes appears in Ambroise Vollard, Renoir: An Intimate Record (New York: Dover, 1990, p. 50). Vollard was an art dealer and collector who wrote biographies of Renoir, Cézanne, and Degas. Renoir’s Portrait of Ambroise Vollard is at the Courtauld in London.
The New York Times writer who compared the prices of Impressionist paintings to those of Boeing 757s was Peter Passell. See “Vincent Van Gogh, Meet Adam Smith,” New York Times, February 4, 1990.
Pepe Karmel called Boy with a Pipe “a pleasant, minor painting,” and said he was “stunned” that it “could command a price appropriate to a real masterpiece by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced from the true values of art.” See “A Record Picasso and the Hype Price of Status Objects,” Washington Post, May 7, 2004.
Chapter 19: Dr. No
Bernard Berenson’s remark about “a pawnbroker’s shop for Croesus” comes from Philipp Blom, To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2003, p. 127).
The Hearst anecdote is from W A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst (New York: Scribners, 1961, p. 465).
J. Paul Getty’s diary entry is from Werner Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 142).
Robert Hughes discussed “how frenzied the world would be if there were only one copy of each book in the world” in “Sold!” Time, November 27, 1989.
Richard Feigen commented that “masterpieces evaporate” in “Getty Closing in on Acquiring Last Raphael in Private Hands,” by Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2002.
The argument that “art was priceless” was S. N. Behrman’s formulation of Duveen’s sales pitch. See Duveen, p. 292.
For a fuller discussion of “the complex interplay between art and ownership,” including insights on the distinction between works of art that belong to everybody versus those that one person can own, see “When Thieves Steal Art, They Steal from All of Us” by Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune, December 22, 2002.
Robert Hiscox talked about art thieves on a BBC radio program called “Stealing Beauty,” broadcast on July 8, 2001.
The anecdote about Marshall d’Estrées is from Pierre Cabanne, Great Collectors (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1961, p. ix). This classic account of collectors and their obsessiveness is so comprehensive that it threatens to become an example of the mania that it explores.
The specific examples Adam Smith had in mind were gold, silver, and diamonds, whose “principal merit… arises from their beauty” rather than their utility; the same could surely be said of art. Colin Piatt quotes the passage from Smith and draws on it for the title of his excellent history of art and art buying, Marks of Opulen
ce (London: HarperCollins, 2004). Smith’s remarks are from Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, Chapter 11.
Macintyre’s remark appears in a stimulating essay called “For Your Eyes Only: The Art of the Obsessive,” Times (London), July 13, 2002.
Chapter 20: “This Is Peter Brewgal”
The Chicago Tribune characterized art thieves as a “cultured coterie of malefactors;” see “When Thieves Steal Art, They Steal from All of Us,” December 22, 2002.
The first and by far the best account of the Courtauld theft was “The Case of the Stolen ‘Christ’ “by Henry Porter, in the Evening Standard Magazine, October 1991. The direct quotations in the account in the text are from Porter’s article and from my interviews with Dennis Farr.
Chapter 21: Mona Lisa Smile
Allen Gore’s claim that Idi Amin collected stolen art appeared in Judith Hennessee’s “Why Great Art Always Will Be Stolen (and Seldom Found),” Connoisseur, July 1990.
The best biography of Georgiana is Amanda Foreman’s Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (New York: Random House, 1999).
Chapter 23: Crook or Clown?
Enger joked that he was better at crime than at soccer in an interview that appeared in Keith Alexander’s BBC documentary “The Theft of the Century.”
Chapter 31: A Stranger
Johnsen remarked that Charley Hill looked “too elegant” to be a policeman in an interview in the BBC documentary “The Theft of the Century.”
Chapter 34: The Thrill of the Hunt
Peter Scott described the “sexual, antisocial excitement” of crime in his memoir Gentleman Thief: Recollections of a Cat Burglar (London: HarperCollins, 1995, p. 4).
INDEX
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Aasheim, William, 234
Action New Life, Norway, 22
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 116
Andreotti, Giulio, 153, 154
Anti-abortion group, suspected involvement of, in theft of
The Scream, 21-24
Anxiety (Munch), 80
Arafat, Yasser, 119
Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer (Rembrandt), 131
Arkan, Serbian gangster, 156
Art
determining authenticity of Munch’s, 87-88, 223-24
forgeries, 146-49, 171-73
high prices in, 129-32
insurance on, 27-29, 63
as investment, 129-30
stolen (see Art crime; Stolen art)
Art collectors
hidden identity of, 137-38
Japanese, 48, 129, 137
motivations of, 134-36
speculation about art thefts commissioned by, 72, 133-34, 138
thieves as, 144-45, 150-51
Art crime, 11-16. See also Art thieves and crooks; Stolen art
amateurs and bunglers
involved in, 139, 140-42
appeal of, to thieves, 16
gangsters involved in, 139, 152-56
high prices of art linked to, 131-32, 139-40
C. Hill on, as “farce,” 121
as “kudos” crime, 215
laws on, 25
as opportunism, 15-16
recovery rate in, 1, 13-14
simple techniques of, 14-15
speculation on art collectors willing to commission, 72, 133-34, 138, 143, 145-49, 189
statistics on extent of, 11-12
violence associated with, 57-58, 123, 124, 154, 155
Art Loss Register art recovery company, 237
Art market, 128-32
high prices in, 129-32
investment aspect of, 129-30
for stolen-and-recovered paintings, 130-31
unregulated nature of, 128-29
Art News (U.S. magazine), 149
Art Squad (Scotland Yard), 24
campaign by, for permission
to recover The Scream, 46-47
sting set up by, and recovery of Munch’s The Scream, 48-49, 78-88. See also The Scream (Munch), 1994 theft and recovery of
work of, and problems facing, 25-33
Art Theft and Forgery Investigations: The Complete Field Manual (Spiel), 149
Art thieves and crooks, 139, 140-42
amateurs and bunglers as, 139, 140-42
S. Breitwieser, 144-45
M. Cahill as, 56-60, 63-64, 67, 68, 70, 77, 122, 126, 127
categories of, 139
as collectors, 144-45, 150-51
A. Daisley as, 140-41
D. Duddin, 185-96
R. Dugdale as, 123-26
efficiency of, 14-15
P. Enger as, 160-62, 234-35
financial issues and, 131-32, 139-40
gangsters as, 139, 152-56
motives of, 29-32
as opportunists, 15
V. Perugia as, 146-49
P. Scott as, 215-16
A. Worth as, 150-51
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,
Great Britain, 13, 133
The Astronomer (Vermeer), 12n
Bailey, Anthony, 62
Ball at the Moulin de la Galette (Renoir), 48, 137
Bath, Marquess of, 236
Beit, Alfred, Sir, 59, 60, 63, 122, 125. See also Russborough House, Ireland, art thefts from
Beit, Clementine Freeman-Mitford, Lady, 59, 63, 122-23, 125
Belgium, recovery of Vermeer painting in, 69, 70-77 Bellotto, Bernardo, 126
View of Florence, 126-27
Berenson, Bernard, 134
Berg, Knut, director, Norway’s
National Gallery, 8-9, 18, 93, 233
Berman, Charley (C. Hill alias), 65, 68
Berntsen, Geir, 7
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, England, 140-41
Bishop, Tom (FBI pseudonym), 68
Bok, Sissela, 115-16
Bouquet of Peonies (Manet), 13
Boy with a Pipe (The Young Apprentice) (Picasso), 132, 137
Breitwieser, Stéphane, art thefts perpetrated by, 144-45
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter, 104
theft of Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery by, 141-42, 181-84
Brueghel the Younger, Pieter, 104
Buccleuch, Duke of, 29
Bunton, Kempton, 188
Burge, Christopher, 131
Butler, John (head of Art Squad), 29, 32, 233
campaign by, for permission to recover The Scream,46-47
role in sting to recover The Scream, 51-53, 109, 114-15, 197, 198-99, 205-6
By the Deathbed (Munch), 80
Cahill, Martin “The General,” 1986 theft of Vermeer painting and other artwork by, 56-60, 63-64, 67, 68, 70, 77, 122, 126, 127
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisida), 153-54
Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, 153
The Caravaggio Conspiracy (Watson), 154n
Cellini, Benvenuto, 12, 239
Cézanne, Paul, 13, 133
Chaffinch, Lynne, 155
Chaudron, Yves, 146-48
Le Chemin de Sèvres (Corot), 16
Chevalier, Tracy, 60
Chez Tortoni (Manet), 14, 240
Cholmondeley, Lord, 239
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (Bruegel), 104
theft and recovery of, 141-42
Christie’s auction house, 131
Church of San Lorenzo,
Palermo, Italy, 153
Codex Leicester, 136n
Command for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Italy, 152-53
Concerned Criminals, 59
The Concert (Vermeer), 12, 14, 62, 240
Conforti, Roberto, 153
Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, Le Chemin de Sèvres, 16
Counterfeit Currency Squad,
Great Britain, 211
Counterfeit money
case,
Charley Hill’s undercover work on, 210-13
Courtauld Institute Galleries,
London, theft of Bruegel’s
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery from, 141-42, 181-84
Coyle, Tommy, 65-67
Cranach the Elder, Lucas, 155
Ill-Matched Lovers, 155
theft of Sybille of Cleves by, 144-45
Czech Republic, 155, 178
Dagbladet (Norwegian newspaper), 17, 95-96, 162
Daisley, Anthony, theft of
Wallis’s Death of Chatterton by, 140-41
Dalrymple, Mark, 139-40, 175, 179
The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa (Reit), 146
Death of Chatterton (Wallis), 141
Death Struggle (Munch), 80
Decker, Karl, 148-49
Degas, Edgar, 14
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Picasso), 132
Despair (Munch), 80, 86
Diamonds, stolen, 67, 70
Dr. No, imagined wealthy art collector willing to commission art thefts, 72, 133-34, 136, 138, 143, 145-49
Doescher, Russell, 85n Donovan, James, 57-58
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 151
Drugs, smuggling and selling illicit, 30, 31, 70
Duddin, David, 185-96
on lessons applied to art crime, 191-92
on market for stolen art, 189-90
on stolen Rembrandt, 192-96
Duddin, Mary, 187, 188, 191, 196
Dugdale, Rose, art thefts
committed by, 123-26
Dürer, Albrecht, 78
Duveen, Joseph, 135
Elizabeth II, Queen of England, 60
Ellis, Dick (Art Squad detective), 26, 175-76
on Art Squad stings to recover art, 47, 48
work on sting to recover The Scream, 52-53, 91, 107-8
Enger, Pal, 243
art thefts perpetrated by, 160-62
theft of The Scream and role of, 234, 235
Ensor, James, Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889, 82, 112
d’Estrées, Marshall, 136