Rodin's Young Girl with Serpent, stolen in Beverly Hills

In 1991, while the owners were away, thieves entered a house in Beverly Hills, California. No source gives the day. Artnet reports that the house was raided more than once, and that the Rodin went on one of those occasions. The Los Angeles Times puts the loss at about $1 million in art and personal items.

The Rodin was a small bronze, Young Girl with Serpent, 39.2 centimetres high. Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor, conceived the figure around 1885 or 1886. He died in 1917, so this cast is posthumous. The Georges Rudier foundry in Paris made it in 1973 for the Musée Rodin. Christie’s records that B. Gerald Cantor, a Los Angeles collector, acquired it in January 1974. A Beverly Hills couple bought it around 1975.

The Times reports, citing Christopher Marinello of the London firm Art Recovery Group, that the couple’s housekeeper sold a duplicate key to a gang for $5,000. He had boasted of his employers’ wealth. Police arrested him about six months later, in Miami, in 1991 or 1992. The Times says he was convicted. Artnet says he served a US sentence and was then extradited to Switzerland. No other person was charged. Police later recovered some items, but not the Rodin. An early sketch of The Kiss and a sculpture, The Eternal Spring, are still missing.

The bronze reappeared at Christie’s. The Times says Jérôme Le Blay, founder and director of the Comité Rodin in Paris, saw it at the auction house’s London offices in 2010 and matched it to a stolen work in his database. The BBC and CNN say 2011. Christie’s withdrew it during checks, and a spokeswoman said it never went into a sale. Christie’s told New Scotland Yard, which contacted the Beverly Hills police in 2011. Detective Sergeant Michael Corren, who had worked on the 1991 case, searched the old files. He found that the owners had made an insurance claim and been paid.

The consignor was the son of a West Hollywood dealer. He is not named in any source. Marinello says a dealer bought the bronze soon after the theft and that the son did not know it was stolen. No source reports a charge against him. His lawyer asked to be paid at least half the work’s value, and the dispute ran for about four years. Corren then found a misfiled police report. It said the dead dealer had been contacted after the theft. The son gave up his claim and released the bronze to the insurer, which had hired Art Recovery Group to negotiate. The Art Newspaper says it came back in April 2015. The recovery was announced on 9 July 2015.

Sources differ on who then owned it. The Times says the Beverly Hills police described it as owned by the original insurer, which offered to return it to the widow if she repaid the insurance money. Art Recovery Group, speaking to CNN, says it was offered back to the victim, who decided it should be sold. The BBC says it was released back to her. Christie’s says only that it sold on behalf of the underwriters. The victim, then in her 80s, asked that her family name be withheld. She gave Corren the credit for the recovery.

Christie’s sold the bronze in New York on 13 November 2015, as lot 1275. The estimate was $80,000 to $120,000, before the buyer’s premium. It sold for $137,000, including the buyer’s premium. Christie’s has not published the hammer price. No source names the buyer or says where the bronze is now.