Police recover stolen Leonardo painting

Police recover stolen Leonardo painting
2007/10

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 4, 2:21 PM ET

LONDON - Detectives on Thursday recovered a Leonardo da Vinci painting that was stolen from a Scottish castle in a daring daylight raid four years ago.

The painting appeared on the FBI‘s 10 most-wanted list of stolen art and on the Art Loss Register‘s list of stolen masterpieces, where it was valued at $65 million.

The lead investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Mickey Dalgleish, said the painting had been tracked down in a combined operation by Scottish police and national crime agencies, with help from the public.

"Madonna with the Yarnwinder" was stolen from the castle while it was on public display. Two thieves posing as tourists overpowered a guide before escaping with the painting.

Some scholars have suggested the painting is the work of Leonardo‘s assistants, but Scottish experts have said that the central figures of the Madonna and child are the artist‘s own work, and that the overall design is likely to be his.

The painting had been in the Buccleuch family for more than 200 years. Its recovery comes a month after the death at 83 of the ninth Duke of Buccleuch. He was succeeded by his son.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Van Gogh Painting A Fake

Van Gogh Painting A Fake


by The Associated Press A painting attributed to Vincent Van Gogh for more than 70 years was said to be a fake Friday, after art experts found it was probably painted by one his peers.

The director of Australia's National Gallery of Victoria, Gerard Vaughan, said a specialist team at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands found the painting had strong stylistic differences from the Dutch artist's other works, and was mostly likely painted by one of his contemporaries.

The painting, "Head of a Man," was brought to Australia in 1939 as part of a contemporary art exhibit owned by Keith Murdoch, father of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

The piece became stranded in Australia with the outbreak of World War II, and the gallery bought it in 1940 for around $3,500.

"It was purchased as a Van Gogh work, and had been accepted as a Van Gogh for more than a decade before the (gallery's) purchase," Vaughan said in a statement.

He stressed the painting had simply been misattributed to Van Gogh.

"It is very important to make the point that it's not a forgery," he told reporters. "There is no evidence to suggest that someone produced this picture ... to pass it off as a work by Van Gogh."

The painting's authenticity was first called into question last August when it was on show at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Critics said the work, dated 1886, was of a different style to other Van Gogh paintings of the same period and was not mentioned in any of the Dutch master's letters.

When the exhibit closed, the National Gallery of Victoria sent the painting - a portrait of a bearded, curly haired man against a brownish background - to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for verification.

As a Van Gogh, the painting had been valued at around $21 million.