The case of the missing painting
The painting's the thing: Herring fights for stolen artwork
"Portrait of a Man" by Sir Henry Raeburn
Joanne Herring
When one thinks of where stolen paintings turn up, the imagination turns to secret underground Nazi caches and hidden rooms behind false walls in the mansions of bored playboy millionaires. But sometimes they are found in less exotic, more obvious places—like New York's Sotheby's auction house.
But according to the Houston Chronicle, that's where an 18th-century work by Sir Henry Raeburn was found, over 20 years after Joanne King Herring reported it stolen. After Gerald Rice consigned Raeburn's Portrait of a Man to Sotheby's for auction last year, the auction house found a matching description of a stolen work in the Art Loss Registry. Herring has an auction receipt and catalog from Christie's showing she purchased the work in 1980, and a police report filed in 1986 after the painting went missing while being framed.
“He has no proof, and I have all the proof. I've never heard of anything like this. I wouldn't any more press a case if I didn't have a bill of sale than fly to the moon," Herring told the Chronicle.
For his part, Rice, a former Houston resident now living in Manhattan, says he purchased the painting for $1,000 in 1983 or 1984 from Hart Galleries in Houston, a gallery that is now defunct after owners pled guilty last year to misapplication of fiduciary property of more than $200,000. The Hart have signed an affidavit that they have no record of selling anything to Rice, and Rice has no proof of sale to back up his claim. Nevertheless, Rice remains adamant that the painting is rightfully his.
"This is not a painting I have great sentimental value for or a lot of money invested in, but I am pissed off because I feel that someone is trying to take advantage of me," Rice told the New York Post.
Without Rice ceding ownership, the painting remains at Sotheby's until a civil court order compels the return. Herring has filed in Harris County Court with a trial set to begin in 2011. Though the painting is only valued at $15,000-$20,000, both sides seem ready to go to the mat over it.
"She just wants her painting back," Herring's lawyer, Michael Lowenberg, told the New York Post. "It's not about the value of the painting, it's the principle."
Someone should tell Mr. Rice he's messing with the wrong socialite.
