Duchess of Devonshire Theft
If you’ve ever read or watched Sherlock Holmes and come across the villain in that series, Dr. Moriarty, you’re able to read about the man who inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to create that character. A so-called gentleman criminal who played a lifelong game of cat and mouse with investigators.
The Woman at the Center of Everything
At the center of this case is a portrait of Georgina Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. It was painted between 1785 and 1787 by Thomas Gainsborough. Georgina was born Georgina Spencer (the same Spencers as Princess Diana) in 1757. In 1774, at the age of 17, she was married off by her father to the 5th Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish. Georgina was kind of like an IT girl of her time, she was fashionable and charming but also had a clear passion for helping the less fortunate in society and frequently donated her time and money to the cause.
Unfortunately, at home, things weren’t so good as the outside world, where she was adored. William wasn’t a great guy or husband and she was unhappy in her marriage which led to alcohol and gambling addictions. As a result, Georgina died in 1806 at the age of 48 laden with debt. The same year she died, the portrait painted of her, Portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, disappeared from her home, Chatsworth House.
The Theft
So, in 1806 the painting seems to disappear, right after Georgina’s death. Then in the 1830s, it was discovered again at the home of a schoolmistress who had cut the painting down in order for it to fit over her fireplace (IMAGINE). No one really knows how she got it or how it came to be there. The schoolmistress sold the painting to an art dealer in 1841 for £56, who later gave it to his friend art collector Wynne Ellis. Upon Ellis’ death in 1876, the painting went up for sale at Christie’s London where art dealer William Agnew bought it for £10,000. At the time this was the most any painting had ever sold for at auction and people were shocked. So this painting was garnering some serious attention already.
Then, three weeks after Agnew hangs Portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire in his Bond St. gallery, she’s gone. Someone broke into the gallery in the night and stole the portrait.
The Investigation
Scotland Yard were called to the scene as soon as Agnew discovered that the painting was missing and they were under serious pressure to locate the painting since such a huge amount of money had been spent on it so recently. Unfortunately, they had little to go on (feel like I say that in every article) and nothing really happened in the recovery effort for 25 years.
In 1893 two men entered a Scotland Yard office in London and revealed themselves to be Joe Elliot and Junka Phillips, accomplices to the theft of Portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire. They identified the thief as Adam Worth and while he broke into the gallery and stole the painting they stood guard outside to help him make a smooth getaway. The deal that was made was that Worth would hold the painting hostage as leverage to force Agnew to pay for his brother John Worth’s bail. Elliot and Phillips were supposed to get some of that money as a reward for their help in the heist. However, the lawyer that John Worth had hired actually turned out to be good and he was released without the help of his brother or the painting, as a result, Worth hid the painting refusing to reveal where it was and Elliot and Phillips never got their promised cash. So they decided to turn Adam Worth in to the authorities.
Also in 1893, Worth was caught and imprisoned in Belgium but he still didn’t say a word about where the painting was or use it as a bartering chip for his own release. When he was finally released in 1897, he returned home to find that not only all of his possessions but also his WIFE had been stolen by a former criminal colleague. All he had left was Thomas Gainsborough’s Portrait of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire. All this time he had stored it in a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, which felt like a second home to him. So Worth moved to America to be closer to his one surviving possession.
An aside about Worth since I mentioned him in the introduction. He was considered a complete gentleman criminal and had been evading the authorities for a long time at this point. He was born in Germany and raised in New York where he joined pickpocket gangs as a youth. After a stint in Sing Sing prison, from which he escaped, he moved back to Europe to rob banks, and honestly, he became very good at it. He operated under many different names and was able to seamlessly integrate himself into high society circles. He never participated in violent crime and looked down on other criminals who used weapons as he considered his brain more useful than any weapon if he found himself in a sticky situation. This crime was the downfall of his long criminal career.
Then, unexpectedly, in early 1901 Worth had a change of heart. I couldn’t find anything that told me what happened or if he just decided to stop running from the police and hiding his treasure. In any case, he decided he wanted to return the painting and through the American detective agency, Pinkertons, he negotiated the ransom with Agnew’s son who ended up paying $25,000 for it (tbh seems like a bargain). The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago in March 1901 and the painting was immediately taken back to London where it was put up for sale. J.P. Morgan purchased the painting for $150,000.
The painting remained in the Morgan family until 1994 when it was put up for sale at Sotheby’s and was purchased by the 11th Duke of Devonshire. He purchased it for $408,870 and it’s back to hanging at Chatsworth House as originally intended.
Works Cited
Charney, Noah. “The Decline and Fall of the Gentlemanly Art Thief”. Phaidon. https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2018/may/16/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-gentlemanly-art-thief/#:~:text=In%201876%2C%20he%20slipped%20into,his%20disposal%20of%20the%20work.
Coleman, Patrick. “The Case of the Disappearing Duchess”. National Emergency Services Museum. 2022. https://www.visitnesm.org.uk/post/the-case-of-the-disappearing-duchess
“The Theft of “Duchess of Devonshire” Painting Stirs Interest”. History. 2009. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-theft-of-duchess-of-devonshire-stirs-interest