THE FATE OF LORD BATH'S TITIAN

Martin Bailey answers the old question:

what happens to stolen paintings too famous to be sold on the open market?

The diamond dealer held the Ver- meer as collateral while awaiting repayment of the loan, and the paint- ing was hidden in a bank vault in Lux- embourg. An undercover operation eventually encouraged those holding the four Beit paintings to move them to Antwerp, where on 2 September 1993 they were recovered by the police. Fortunately, the damage suf- fered by 'Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid' during its interlude in the under- world was relatively slight. There was just enough time for the National Gallery of Ireland (which in the meantime had been given the picture by Beit) to do the neces- sary conservation work, so that the Ver- meer was ready for the Washington show.

Other paintings stolen from the Beit col- lection were also recovered in circum- stances which suggested links with the drugs world (only three of the 18 pictures are still missing). In May 1990, a lost Metsu was seized in Istanbul, and police believe it was about to have been sold in order to acquire heroin for importation into the British Isles. Two years later, a Gainsbor- °ugh portrait was recovered from a van on Euston Road by detectives investigating drugs gangs. In March 1993, two more pic- tures, by Rubens and Palamedesz, were found in similar circumstances, one aban- doned in the left-luggage office at Euston Station and the other hidden behind a sofa in a Borehamwood house. According to Detective Chief Inspector Charles Hill of the Metropolitan Police, until last month head of the Arts and Antiques Squad and now based at Belgravia police station, The gang responsible for the original theft viewed the Beit masterpieces as negotiable instruments to provide venture capital for their trafficking.'

Hill rejects the idea that masterpieces are stolen to order for a Mr Big, a mythical pri- vate collector who has decorated his luxuri- ous hideaway with some of the world's most famous paintings. Ever since the 1960s James Bond film Dr No, in which the stolen Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington hung in the villain's residence, there has been a popu- lar misconception that this is what happens to pictures which are too well-known to sell. The fact is that no such treasure-house has ever been discovered.

If great paintings are not stolen to order, the crooks need to find a buyer, since multi- million-pound treasures are far too familiar to contemplate disposing of on the open market. Thieves may think that they can extort large sums of money from the owner, but they almost invariably fail (at least in Britain), so the only way they are able to benefit from the crime is to use their booty in the underworld. Valuable stolen paintings can be used as a form of illicit 'currency', although they are worth only a small fraction of their open-market value. Pictures are often exchanged for drugs, which are then smuggled or sold on by the crook. The per- son who acquires the painting then has an asset which can only be used in the under- world. Art, rather than cash, has the added advantage of avoiding the problems of money-laundering, which has become more of a problem for criminals because new anti- laundering regulations put the onus on banks to investigate suspicious transactions.

But its value is rarely as realisable as the thieves imagine. Most thefts, according to an investigating officer, are based on the crimi- nal's ignorance of the susceptibility of the art market to stolen goods. 'These are not your Raffles-type gentlemen crooks,' the officer says, 'more like some little runt from a council estate.'

The connection between art and drugs is one of the reasons behind Jan- uary's reorganisation at Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police's Arts and Antiques Squad has been merged into the new Organised Crime Group. Renamed the Art and Antique Focus Unit, it works alongside units tackling armed robbery (the Flying Squad), cheque fraud, vehicle theft etc. A Scot- land Yard spokesman confirmed that the creation of the Organised Crime Group is 'in recognition of the close links between different types of crime'.

Officers of the new unit say they welcome the change, since it should provide greater resources for fighting crime. But others in the art world are worried that integrating the old Arts and Antiques Squad into a wider organisation will downgrade its importance and that specialist knowledge and expertise are being dissipated. There is concern that other forms of crime will get more attention from the police, since art is regarded as an effete area by a macho-ori- entated force.

Although the public usually assumes that it is just the police who are tracking down stolen art, equally important are loss adjusters. Employed by Lloyd's and insur- ance companies, they assess the circum- stances and size of a loss, as well as trying to ensure a recovery. This is primarily done by offering a reward for information in the hope of gaining valuable intelligence, some- times from other members of the criminal fraternity who were not involved in the theft. Rewards are normally set at ten per cent of the value of an artwork, but with items worth over £100,000 the proportion falls.

The payment of rewards has become an extremely sensitive issue, since it is vital that money paid out does not reach those involved in the crime, or indeed police offi- cers working on the case. Considerable dis- cussion was devoted to this delicate problem at a conference on art theft and its control, organised by Lloyd's of London Press last November, and some of the key players admitted that the system has been abused. Richard Magnall, a director of Tyler & Co. (which now deals with most of the major thefts), said other firms had done 'murky deals' in the late 1970s. 'Some loss adjusters had perhaps got a little too close to police officers,' he said. In a few cases, reward money, 'sometimes quite a substantial amount, was going into the indi- vidual police officer's pocket'. Payment procedures were tightened up by the Metropolitan Police in 1980, when written authorisation was required from a senior level, but Hill admits that detectives can still abuse the system.

The extent of art crime in Britain is diffi- cult to quantify, but the most accurate fig- ures have been compiled by the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft, an independent body attempting to reduce the level of crime in the art world. 'A conservative estimate is that art theft is costing insurers in the United Kingdom around £500 million per annum, and uninsured losses may well double this figure,' it says. Art theft would therefore be running at £1 billion a year and most experts fear that it is on the increase. Much of this art theft is in the shape of portable antiques — particularly silver, jewellery and ceramics — but it is the loss of important paintings which usually hits the headlines. Although these represent only a small proportion of losses, they have the greatest individual financial value and are rightly regarded as a part of our national heritage.

In Britain, two major art thefts remain unsolved. The most recent was Lord Bath's Titian, stolen from Longleat House on the night of 6 January last year. Lord Bath, who was dining in his top-floor suite, heard noth- ing as a gang used a ladder and then smashed an upstairs window to enter the state draw- ing-room. Within seconds they had seized Titian's 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt', along with two minor 16th-century works. It was a highly professional job, and although the alarms sounded the thieves had fled by the time security men reached the scene.

The Titian is estimated to be worth at least £5 million and Tyler & Co. immedi- ately offered a £100,000 reward. Although both the police and loss adjusters are reluc- tant to reveal details of their investigations, it is understood that the movement of the Titian has been tracked and there is opti- mism that the picture will eventually be returned to Longleat. 'It is extremely diffi- cult to sell such an important painting. In the long run there is a very good chance of a recovery,' said Mark Dalrymple, a direc- tor of Tyler's.

The most valuable painting stolen in Britain in recent years is 'The White Duck', a still life by Oudry taken from Lord Chol- mondeley's Houghton Hall on 30 September 1992. This theft received considerably less publicity, perhaps partly because its owner was not quite such a colourful character as Lord Bath. The Ouch.), was seized during a quick night-time raid, in very similar circum- stances to those at Longleat. The early-18th- century French artist is hardly a household name and the subject matter is not particu- larly appealing (a dead duck suspended on a string), but the painting is valued at over £7 million. A 'substantial' reward has been promised by Tyler's and, although the amount has not been specified, it is likely to match the £100,000 later offered for the information on the Titian. Again, there is confidence that the Oudry will eventually be recovered, because it would be impossible to sell it on the open market.

The final major international theft which has been of particular concern to those in Britain involved in fighting art crime is the robbery from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. On the night of 18 March 1990, two thieves wearing police uniforms gained entry, overpowered the guards and disabled the security alarm. They then seized 11 paint- ings: Vermeer's 'The Concert' (sadly missed at the Washington exhibition), three Rembrandts, a Flinck landscape, a Manet portrait and five works by Degas. None of the pictures, worth over $200 mil- lion, has been found, making it the world's largest art theft for many years. The paint- ings were not insured, but a $1 million reward has generously been offered by a group of five major companies doing busi- ness in the art world. Inspector Hill remains confident that the Gardner pic- tures are safe and will eventually turn up. `The person who organised the theft may well be in prison for some other offence. When he gets out he will try to think of some way to sell them,' he said.

Despite evidence that great masterpieces usually surface eventually, there is a grow- ing acknowledgment in the art world that all those fighting theft must work more closely together — police detectives, loss adjusters, insurance companies, owners, dealers, auction houses and the organisa- tions which record stolen works. Co-opera- tion among criminals tends to break down as members of a gang each try to cash in on a crime. Unity therefore is essential among those trying to outwit the thieves. The suc- cessful effort to track down 'The Scream', the Munch masterpiece stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994, is an encouraging reminder that, while it is easy to steal an important painting, it is devilishly hard to make the crime pay.