The portrait stolen after Antiques Roadshow

On Saturday 16 January 1988, a house near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk was emptied of its pictures. The Times reports, citing local newspaper reports of the time, that the owner, an antiquarian bookseller named David Ferrow, and his daughter were out at a casino. The thieves took every picture from the walls. They also took Toby jugs and 3,000 pounds in cash. Among the pictures was a small portrait of a woman in a pearl necklace.

The portrait is an oil on board, 50.8 by 38.8 centimetres. It is signed with a monogram and dated 1874. Christie’s, the auction house, attributes it to Emma Sandys, a painter from Norwich who died in 1877. She was the sister of the better-known Pre-Raphaelite painter Frederick Sandys. The sitter is Mary Emma Jones, who Christie’s says was Frederick’s model. Christie’s suggests the oil follows a chalk drawing that he made around 1873. For many years the picture was thought to be his work.

The family’s own account reached the press in 2018. The Times quotes the owner’s daughter, Jan Davey. She says a friend took the painting to the BBC television programme Antiques Roadshow when it visited Great Yarmouth in May 1987, and that it was valued at 20,000 pounds. The Times puts the broadcast a week before the theft. The Art Newspaper says only that it was shown in January 1988. The family believed that the thieves had seen it on screen. Richard Ellis, a former head of the Metropolitan Police art and antiques squad, told The Times that criminals do watch such programmes to learn what things are worth.

The Times reports that Mr Ferrow was paid by his insurer. It adds that the painting may not have passed to the insurer, because it was not named in the claim. The sources read report no arrest or charge. As far as the reports show, no one was charged.

The painting next appears at Christie’s in London on 11 July 2018, as lot 84 in a sale of Victorian Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist art. The catalogue called it recently rediscovered and offered it as the property of a private collector. It gave no earlier history and did not mention the theft. Christie’s estimated it at 20,000 to 30,000 pounds. Christie’s reported the price as 62,500 pounds. The sources do not say how the painting came to the seller, and the seller and the buyer were not named.

Christie’s told The Art Newspaper that it had checked the Art Loss Register, a database of stolen art, and found no listing. The register began in the 1990s, after the theft. A Christie’s spokesperson said the house was working to resolve the matter with all parties and would never knowingly sell a work without correct title. The Times reports, on Ms Davey’s account, that Christie’s offered the family 10,000 pounds and asked them to sign a confidentiality agreement and give up their claim. She says the family refused. Christie’s did not confirm the offer in the reports read.

By October 2018 the buyer had not received the painting. The Art Newspaper reported on 15 October 2018 that Christie’s still held it, that legal title was unclear, and that it would be released only after a settlement. That is the latest dated fact in the sources. They do not say how the dispute ended or where the painting is now.