Sunday 21 June 1998
By JENNY SINCLAIR
Police yesterday released a video
taken by security cameras showing a man they think may have stolen a Frederick
McCubbin painting valued at $50,000. They also said they were looking to the
art world for leads in tracking down the painting stolen on Friday from a
Bourke Street, City, gallery. Shipping on the River Yarra depicts a scene from
early Melbourne. It was last seen resting against a wall in the first-floor
gallery. Detective Senior Constable Tony Loveridge of Richmond CIB said police
did not know how many people had been involved in the theft or how the work had
been smuggled out of the gallery. It disappeared sometime between 11am and 5pm.
The 24-centimetre-square painting, signed by McCubbin, was in a gilded wooden
frame. Senior Constable Loveridge said the painting may have been slipped into
a briefcase or hidden under a jacket. The gallery is part of Kozminsky
Jewellery, which also sells antique jewellery and silverware. Senior Constable
Loveridge said police would be relying to a large extent on information from
Kozminsky about where the painting might end up. He said: "We have to
liaise fairly closely with Kozminsky's and chase up leads that they get back to
us with because the art community is a very tight-knit community, especially
when you're talking about these prices. "Not many people can afford to buy
this sort of painting. Whether or not it goes interstate straightaway, or
whether it was stolen for an order, I don't know." The theft could well
have been to order, he said. "There's heaps and heaps of paintings in
there, some of them worth a lot more than this one. But they're a lot bigger.
This one . . . was small, and it was targeted, I think, because for that size
it's probably the most expensive one. I believe whoever's taken it would have
to have known the value and the price of it." Senior Constable Loveridge
appealed to the art community and the public to watch for the work. He said it
would be more easily sold overseas. The head of the paintings department at
auctioneer Leonard Joel said the loss of any McCubbin work was "a cultural
diminishing" because McCubbin was a "pivotal artist" for
Melbourne. "The likely scenarios are that it will be sold privately for a
signicantly decreased value, far less than market value, and it will reappear
five or six years down the track." He said that it could be sold to an
"unsuspecting client".No reputable dealer or auction house, he said,
would touch it." Kozminsky declined to comment on the theft. At the
gallery yesterday, in the presence of staff, other works were resting unsecured
against walls. Senior Constable Loveridge said he could not say whether the
security guard who usually stands at the door of the store was on duty on
Friday. The painting was in the gallery on commission and Senior Constbale
Loveridge said the owner, who is from another state and whose name was not
revealed, had been told of the loss. The painting was insured.
McCubbin was a founder of the impressionist Heidelberg
School. Many of his works depict Melbourne and surrounding countryside around
the turn of the century.