New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 26, 1930, Page 3

n Z | : o b o T T e i i i i B T RAD ORI S AN I I TN A A7 SCOTLAND YARD’S Cut the Priceles Perplexing 1] Mystery of " the Stolen “Angels” Traced to a Beautiful Gang-Girl. craftiest minds have just joined forces with the astute Belgian police in an intensive effort to solve the most baffling art-theft mystery of the Twentieth Century. The London and Brussels authorities have been working on two different clues, but in spite of the most unre- mitting vigilance and the sharpest de- ductive faculties, the puzzle of the missing Van Dyck is still presenting knotty features, The painting, entitled “The Concert of the Angels,” a world-renowned can- vas, whose estimated worth is 90,000 pounds sterling—about $450,000—Ilit- erally melted into mist en route from the Belgian capital to a London art gzal- lery. When the packing case to which it had been confided was opened at Til- bury Docks, the port of the metrop- olis, the" steamship authorities found to their chagrin and astonishment that a steady, swift hand had cut the price- less art work from its fram Some evil djinn of m seems to be stalking the gh of Van Dyck’s genius, for this is the second time in three decades that a roduct of his brush has been pur- oined. In 1907 another Van Dyck, worth $100,000, was slic from its frame in a church Cogurtrai, France. The thief, who tHe police suspect was a woman—as in the current case—paid a hawker four shillings to smuggle the canvas mto Bruges. This man, an honest fellow, informed the authorities, and was pleasantly surprised when they paid him the $4,000 reward that had been posted for the picture’s recovery. Act- ing ,on information supplied by hi the police arrested another man, w was given a five-year prison sentence. « But those most intimately acquainted with the case expressed the opinion that the culprit was a mere interme- diary or accessory and that the brains rtune 2\ S S N AR B N Combination Ph N\ S o N \\\\\\\% | N\ | oto-Drawing, Expressing an Artist's tion of Dyck’s “The Concert of the An, Was ( Frame While Awaiting Delivery to a London in the Hold of a Belgian Ship. Authentically Operating Crooks. Painting Sir Edwin Landseer's “Stag at Bay,” an Animal Masterpiece Which Once ( Suffered the Same Fate as Van Dyck's “Concert of the Angels.” of the gang, with headquarters the courteou Central Europe, were lodged inside blonde head of a daring and beauti little schemer, a girl with a reputat for international robberies and deeds of an even darker nature. It is freely conceded that this now grown fo womanhood, or younger sister, may have p way for the second Van Dy t This assumption is based on the cut- ting technique employed in_ bot = stances, the canva: v severed from their frames w quick, delicate strok ) gestive of the crude slashings of : burly masculine criminal. One faction investig. . Dyck case thinks the robbery was ¢ S d in mitted before the ship on which it ows, and G placed had left Brussels. This the ips, a L has found favor with certain Engli sseur whose crimi ists. But on the other ha sels detectives point to indications that “The Concert of the Angels” was actually aboard and reached Tilbury unmolested, where the ship. stood by for several days, w the dramatic climax of the theft cax to light. The prelude to the pilfering of t painting proved how closely a thieves follow the news and how alert they are to snatch at any opportunity thus presented. Months. before the project of bringing “The Concert of the Angels” to London had been broached, announcement w. made that fourteen million pounds worth of Italian art treasures would be ex- hibited at Burlington House thrcugh ¢ , with a_po view Mon acceded. h was padded, and padlocked t scrupulous U SN0 The “Mona Lisa” of Leonardo da Vinci, Stolen from the Louyvre in Paris by a Woman Thief, but Later Recovered in Italy and Returned to Its Original Niche. mice, 1930, : One Theory Holds ' Thief Was a Younz Woman. Head of a Gang of Internat Reproduced. How Van ut from Iis Connoisseur hat the N international art operating on 5 oh t up that col , however, proved ries ma cago, Seattle, San were apparent e had been tar page. Most notor f Leonardo da Vine om the made ous art creations Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, as Painted by Gainsborough. It Is One of Many Illustrious Canvases Which Have Been Purloined by Robbers. the Van Dyck scandal, hich detectives of two co are still bending their most va efforts, which may be crowned It is an point that began to sell on dollars each, some est crooks in Europe have turned themselves Through exhaustive out exactly what sort present the most valu- the cor- ure from to cut v with the least damage . They even have learned at thin paper must ted over a painting—with a spe- nd of glue—if the canvas is to be rolled up without injury. The theft of the Van Dyck painting in some respects parallels the disap- pearance of the Mona Lisa of the elu- sive smile from her frame in the Louvre nearly twenty ars ago. The painting was orld rang with emed past comprehension unexampled picture, in some the most celebrated portrait ever | a brush, could be sur- taken from its frame in guarded precincts of the and cradle without picture had been difficut, because Leonardo d: Vinci painted his famo wood, which could not be like canvas. Newspapers with discussion and n ¥ written upon the disappearance of th picture. Th were o find the Mor publicity—so it is the more difficult { dares not dispose of t rough the usual channels £5: 7% O . \ AP R IR AN AU, I g Yt RS I )