Stolen masterpiece rivals the Mona Lisa

Published on Thursday 28 August 2003 01:00

THEY knew what they wanted and that they had 15 minutes to get it. By the time the two men walked out with the £30 million masterpiece, they were one minute ahead of schedule.

A getaway car, its engine idling in the expansive castle car park, moved slowly away and Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder, was beginning an unknown journey - most likely to the private collection of an unscrupulous "art lover".

His fee, measured in millions, will in all likelihood fund an international drugs deal.

Serious Crime Squad detectives, drafted into Dumfries-shire in the wake of yesterday’s theft, believe the Madonna was stolen to order.

The theft had all the hallmarks. The thieves bypassed other masterpieces in the Duke of Buccleuch’s Drumlanrig Castle to steal the smaller but infinitely more valuable Da Vinci.

The art critic, Brian Sewell, said: "They clearly knew what they wanted because they ignored other masterpieces by Rembrandt and Holbein.

"They may be masterpieces, but none is worth anywhere near as much.

"If I were in the business of stealing pictures, the Madonna is the one I would make for. Apart from its value, it is small - 19in by 14in - and easily concealed.

Mr Sewell said that, with the Mona Lisa, the Madonna was among only a handful of paintings known to be authentic Leonardo works.

The thieves arrived just before 11am. They were flamboyantly dressed, polite and personable until the moment one of them presented a knife to a woman tour guide who had led them to the Madonna.

The men also evaded the CCTV coverage and, after removing the painting, walked calmly out of the rambling castle and into the visitors’ car park, where they got into a Golf car with two other men in it.

An officer close to the investigation said last night that one serious line of inquiry was the painting was stolen to order to be sold on the art black market.

After the raid, the four men were last seen travelling along the Thornhill to Durisdeer road that winds through the hills.

Road blocks were set up by Dumfries and Galloway police and Strathclyde’s helicopter was drafted in, but there was no sign of the getaway car in the labyrinth of hill roads.

A police spokeswoman said: "Officers are making intensive inquiries into the theft of a Leonardo da Vinci painting. Anyone who has seen the Golf car or has seen anyone acting suspiciously should contact us."

Police issued descriptions of the men. One was in his late 40s, 5ft 10in, slim and clean shaven. He was wearing a distinctive cream-coloured wide-brimmed hat, black trousers and shoes, a cream-coloured shirt and sleeveless khaki safari jacket.

The other was in his early 40s, about the same height, slim and clean shaven.

He was wearing brown shoes, cream trousers with a black belt, a cream T-shirt, a brown Nubuck leather jacket and a light brown baseball cap. He also wore round-framed glasses.

Detectives privately believe the descriptions indicate that the thieves had style and refinement, which would rule out an opportunist theft by local crooks.

And the speed with which they operated, chose the painting and later evaded the police search was indicative of a high degree of planning common to international art theft.

Detectives and insurers across Europe have identified a worrying trend of such thefts, where the stolen works are sold to private collectors or, in some cases, sold back to the insurance companies.

Lloyds art loss register records 135,000 artworks worth 300 million that have been stolen in recent years and paintings make up the highest proportion.

Keith Nichols, an expert with the underwriters, KJ Coles, said: "My worry is thefts of major works that are sold to people who want to keep them in private cellars.

"There have been several instances of this in Europe."

The National Criminal Intelligence Service said some thieves also steal to raise money for organised crime.

"The latest assessment indicates that criminals are likely to be responsible for most cultural property theft," said a spokesman.

He added: "Serious and organised criminals will be attracted by the size of global art market, the involvement of private dealers and the ease with which stolen items can be moved with low risk of detection.

"Organised criminals steal art and antiques to raise funds for other crime."

In Scotland, a number of such raids have been carried out in recent years at Scone Palace, the home of the Earl of Mansfield, near Perth; Abbotsford House, the ancestral home of Sir Walter Scott, near Galashiels, and Floors Castle, Kelso.

However, the value of the da Vinci makes it the most valuable art work ever stolen in Scotland.

Madonna of the Yarnwinder is the duke’s most prized belonging. It was painted in about 1501 for Florimand Robertet, the secretary of state to Louis XII of France.

An eye-witness account exists of Leonardo executing the painting, which symbolises the future passion of Jesus Christ.

In the painting, the infant Christ is seen clutching a cruciform yarnwinder.

He has turned away from his concerned mother, which indicates that there is nothing she or the world can do to save him from his fate.

For hundreds of years the masterpiece was lost in France, but an ancestor of the duke brought it to Scotland in 1756.

There were doubts expressed as to its authenticity, but the late Lord Clark, one of Britain’s most eminent commentators on renaissance art, believed it was genuine.

In the 1980s, scientific evidence was gathered by Professor Martin Kemp of Oxford, using electro-spectography.

He concluded that they painting was a genuine da Vinci, one of the few truly authentic examples of the artist’s work.

Professor Duncan McMillan, visual art critic for The Scotsman, said: "It is incredibly important and contemporary with the Mona Lisa."

Riches

WALTER Francis John Montagu Douglas Scott, the 9th Duke of Buccleuch and 11th Duke of Queensberry, is Scotland’s greatest landowner and one of Britain’s richest men.

The duke, once a foxhunting fanatic, is now 80 and has been a wheelchair-user since a hunting accident in 1971.

He owns 253,000 acres, mostly in Scotland, and his son and heir, the Earl of Dalkeith, 49, co-manages the family estates.

The duke has a reputation for eccentricity.

He once encouraged farmers to eat grey squirrels, in order to give the indigenous red squirrel population a fighting chance against the intruder.

His stately homes include Bowhill, near Selkirk, Boughton House, Northamptonshire, and Drumlanrig Castle,Thornhill, Dumfries.

The area of countryside he owns is approximately the same size as Barbados.

The 9th duke was born in 1923 and served in the navy.

He is Chancellor of the Order of the Thistle and a member of the Queen’s Royal bodyguard in Scotland.

His paintings are his most prized possessions, the da Vinci in particular.

Following the theft of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder from Drumlanrig Castle, the duke’s family issued a statement on his behalf.

His son, the Earl of Dalkeith, said: "The theft of such a wonderful work of art has shocked our family deeply and the people who work at Drumlanrig.

"Regardless of the painting’s value, the theft is particularly distressing as the painting has been in our family for more than 200 years.

"Moreover, it is a work of art that is enjoyed by the general public who visit Drumlanrig in their thousands year after year.

"We are all utterly dismayed by this theft and appeal for any information that may help recover a painting that means so much to our family and to those who appreciate art and heritage."

Drumlanrig Castle boasts many treasures including Rembrandt’s Old Woman Reading. Nicknamed the "Pink Palace", it was built in 1679.