Dutch Golden Age Cold Case
In 1978 there was an art heist where 12 paintings were stolen, to this day only 3 of them have been recovered but that might be about to change.
The Heist
Let’s go back to the original heist for a minute. In 1978 the home of Robert and Helen Stoddard was burglarized under the cover of night. Robert was a former museum trustee who had amassed an impressive art collection throughout his life. He had planned to donate much of his art collection to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts near their home. During the heist the thieves made off with 12 works of art including a painting by Renoir, a watercolour by J.M.W. Turner, and a 17th century painting entitled Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures by Dutch artist Henrick Avercamp. Currently, all 12 of these pieces are estimated to be worth about $10 million.
Since then only three paintings have been recovered, the most significant of which being Bassins Duquesne et Berrigny a Dieppe, Temps Gris by Camille Pissarro which turned up at a Wolf’s auction in 1998. After a complicated legal dispute the painting was reinstated into the Worcester Art Museum along with the other 2 recovered works.
Cracking the Case
Now we have to fast forward to 2021 and introduce a man named Cliff Schorer. Schorer is a former board president of the Worcester Art Museum so he has a special interest in this case. As well as being the former board president he is himself an avid art lover and collector known for his eagle eyes. In 2014 he even successfully identified a drawing bought at an estate sale for $30 as a rare original Albrecht Dürer.
So as I said, he has a special interest in this Stoddard case and the still missing paintings and I’m sure he’s always researching and trying to find new angles to look at the case from. Then in 2021 he reverse Google image searches one of the missing paintings; Hendrick Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures (this is when you paste a photo into Google, instead of typing in a search term, and it shows you all other photos that look the same or similar to the one you’re using to search). There ended up being a very interesting result.
This search lead Schorer to the website Pexels.com which does a variety of things but one is to sell you anything you can imagine with famous paintings reproduced onto it, think phone cases, tote bags, mugs, and more. What Schorer found was the Avercamp painting on a throw pillow. As he looked closer he realized that the image on the pillow was remarkably high resolution, much too sharp to have been taken before 1978. By looking through the image’s metadata he uncovered a 2012 copyright owned by an art dealer he knew in New York.
Schorer immediately called the art dealer who said that he definitely remembered the painting from a 1995 art fair conducted by a now out of business art gallery and that it had been sold. Over the course of the next four months Schorer worked to try to uncover any information about the sale, the defunct gallery, or any of the people who worked there. Finally he got in touch with the out of business gallery owner’s niece. She went through all the old company records and they were actually able to identify the buyers of Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures.
In 1995 the painting was sold for less than $200,000 which I know sounds like a lot but for Avercamp it is a steal, his record at auction is $8.6 million. What appears to have happened was somewhere along the line the painting’s signature was changed to B. Avercamp from H. Avercamp. A simple change but attributed to Barent Avercamp, Hendrick’s nephew and student whose work sells for far less than his uncle, this painting was much easier to move into the open market and ultimately sell even if it wasn’t as valuable.
Back to the people who bought the painting at auction, they are a Dutch couple who have since died so Schorer sent their heirs a letter on behalf of the Worcester Art Museum in 2021 looking to make arrangements for the painting’s return. They never answered the letter.
In December of 2022, after allowing ample time for the heirs to make contact, Schorer hired a Dutch lawyer who sent a letter advising the heirs that if they did not reach out within 40 days a criminal case would be instigated. Hopefully this case will be able to bring Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures home to Worcester.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any updates on this case and maybe that means the criminal investigation is ongoing but fingers crossed this painting is found safe and sound and a reinstitution is able to happen sooner rather than later. Amazing that all of this was able to happen just because a picture on a pillow was a litttttttle too high res.
Works Cited
Akers, Torey. “Collector Cracks Art Heist Cold Case with a Pillowcase and Reverse Google Image Search”. The Art Newspaper. 2022. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/12/19/worcester-art-museum-heist-worcester-art-museum-henrick-avercamp
Cascone, Sarah. “A Former Museum President Tracked Down a Stolen Painting Using an Image Printed on a Decorative Throw Pillow”. ArtNet News. 2022. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/throw-pillow-stolen-painting-worcester-2230401