The artworks were found in the Upper East Side apartment of an occasional art writer and genealogist known as William M.V. Kingsland, after he died in March 2006, aged 62, without leaving a will.
His collection of around 300 sketches, paintings and sculptures, including works by Picasso, Giacometti, Morandi and Redon, was then handed to Stair Galleries and Christie’s to sell.
But over the past 18 months a complicated story of theft and double identities has emerged, after a gallery owner bought a portrait of the Second Earl of Bessborough by John Singleton Copley for $85,000 (£42,000) from Stair Galleries only to discover that it had been stolen from Harvard University in 1971.
Christie’s discovered through their research into the provenance of other works that they too had been reported stolen in the 1960s and 70s.
The FBI’s art crime unit then investigated and revealed more stolen works, including a bust by Giacometti, thought to be worth around $1m, which Kingsland used as a doorstop. The sale of a still-life by Giorgio Morandi in London for $600,000 was also halted after it was found to be stolen.
Ironically, two sketches by Picasso, worth around $30,000 apiece, were stolen by removal workers whilst being transported from Kingsland’s apartment to Christie’s. When recovered, it was discovered that they had already been stolen – from a New York gallery in 1967.
The FBI have now identified 20 stolen works and suspect that, amongst the 137 with shady provenance, there could be many more.
Kingsland was well known within New York society and art circles, but never invited people to his Manhattan apartment, preferring to tell them that he lived on Fifth Avenue. He was actually born Melvyn Kohn, the son of Jewish refugees from Europe who lived in the Bronx, but he changed his name at the age of 17 to something more “literary sounding”.
There are pictures of all the works thought to be stolen on the FBI website at www.fbi.gov/page2/august08/arttheft_081108.html or contact Agent Wynne on Tel: +1 718 286 7302 or email: James.Wynne@ic.fbi.gov
