Glasgow museum retrieved a painting stolen during heist from more than thirty years ago. Overall, the painting, called “Children Wading”, is a work of art by Scottish artist Robert Gemmell Hutchison. After turning off an alarm, the thieves ascended a ladder. The also went through an upstairs window to break into the Haggs Castle Museum of Childhood in 1989.
Painting Located Via the Art Loss Register
The thieves pilfered a collection of antiques, some of which originated from the renowned Burrell Collection. And up until this point, none of them had been seen again. The painting previously mentioned came into sight after being listed on the Art Loss Register (ALR). The ALR is a system used by museums, auction houses, insurers, law firms and the police. It also claims to be the biggest private archive of stolen artwork, antiques, and collectibles in the world.
It has around 700,000 listed objects. This also includes 65,000 that are presently absent from museums across the globe. James Ratcliffe, the ALR’s director of recoveries, anticipates that in the upcoming weeks and months, there will be a notable rise in the quantity of lost museum artefacts added. This is UK museums are conducting inventory audits.
This comes following news that 2,000 British Museum objects are missing, stolen, or destroyed. Some of the British Museum’s unrecorded art became recognised and uploaded to the ALR. An unsuspecting family holded Children Wading painting. They put it up for auction along with a portion of their late father’s assets. Painted in Carnoustie, Angus, the painting portrays two little girls paddling along the shoreline on a warm summer’s day.
Get the latest articles delivered to your inbox
Sign up to our Free Weekly Newsletter
Glasgow Museum Gets the Painting
“This painting was registered on our database in about 2014, when Glasgow Museums were going through their records, looking for pieces that they could add to our database so that we could track them down”, Mr Ratcliffe said. “Nothing was seen of it until it turned up in November last year at an auction house in North Yorkshire”, he also added. The ALR determined it as pilfered.
Tennants Auctioneers promptly removed it from sale. The family also suggested that it be given back to Glasgow Museums. According to Director Duncan Dornan, the painting came to the museum in 1960, and the organisation is happy to get it back. “We’re delighted to have a work returned, even though the theft was a very long time ago,” he said. “The pain of it still persists – and there’s a loss to the public in Glasgow”, he also added.
“We were sorry to lose it and delighted to be able to recover the work subsequently, using the Art Loss system. This is what happens a lot of the time with art which is stolen, because normally, if you’re just a normal member of the public, you buy art and then you keep it”, he also added.
