Children Wading
Usually when a painting is stolen from a gallery or museum or private collection it’s never seen again, as we sadly know by now. But what happens when they do resurface? How do museums go about getting them back?
Robert Gemmell Hutchinson
The artist at the center of this is Robert Gemmell Hutchinson. He was born in Edinburgh on July 1, 1855 to George, a brass founder, and his wife Margaret. Hutchinson was educated in Edinburgh, first in seal-engraving once it was discovered that he had artistic talent. Later he was encouraged to study oil painting and trained under James Campbell Nobel at the Trustees Academy.
Hutchinson set up his own studio after finishing school, in 1878, and he was pretty much instantly successful. He exhibited work at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1879 and at the Royal Academy in 1881. During this time his style and subject matter evolved from landscape and seascape paintings to adding people into the scenes, many times young girls on the coast.
He had quite an illustrious career; being elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1903 and then a full member in 1911, he was also elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. His first one-man show in London was in 1928 at Barbizon House where he displayed 34 pieces. Safe to say, he wasn’t one of those artists who didn’t see success until after their death.
Haggs Castle Museum of Childhood
In 1972, the Glasgow City Council purchased an old castle, Haggs Castle, that had been used for many different things throughout its life from a private house to a smithy to apartments. The city council decided to convert it into The Museum of Childhood displaying artefacts and artworks that related to all things childhood.
Since many of his paintings featured children, Hutchinson was an obvious choice as an artist to feature in the museum and his oil painting Children Wading was purchased and hung in the castle.
On a winter night in 1989 thieves used a ladder to scale the side of the castle and enter through an upstairs window. Under the cover of darkness they made off with china dolls, a precious jug, and Hutchinson’s Children Wading. The thieves were then gone and there have been zero leads on who they could be and what their motivations were for the theft (aside from speculating that it was the obvious; money).
For 35 years these artefacts remained missing, with many assuming they were gone forever.
2022
In 2022 there was an auction being planned for an estate sale being run by Tennant Auctioneers in North Yorkshire, England. Before the sale the auction house cross referenced all paintings it was planning to sell with the Art Loss Register, a database that tracks lost and stolen art, and they had a hit. One of the paintings in their auction was Children Wading by Hutchinson.
The auction house got in touch with the sellers who were completely unaware that the piece was stolen. Once they learned of its history they agreed to send it back to Scotland. The director of recoveried at the Art Loss Register said “after so many years, determining how and when it ended up in the estate’s possession will likely be impossible” (Nowakowski, 2023).
Children Wading was returned to Glasgow over the summer of 2023 and since the Museum of Childhood closed years ago, the painting will be stored with the collections of the Glasgow Life Museums. While not on display at a museum, people can still see the painting on tours of the Glasgow Museums Resource Center.
So, glad it’s back but it seems like a shame to go through all that then not even display the piece.
Works Cited
Nowakowski, Teresa. “A Painting Stolen in a Heist 30 Years Ago Has Returned to Glasgow”. Smithsonian Magazine. 2023. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/decades-after-it-was-stolen-in-a-heist-painting-returns-to-glasgow-museum-180983091/
Schrader, Adam. “A Painting Stolen from a Museum in Glasgow Has Been Returned After More Than 30 Years”. ArtNet. 2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/glasgow-museum-painting-stolen-returned-2382173