Maxfield Parrish Ascutney River Study Art Theft Recovery Anniversary

Summary: The Maxfield Parrish Ascutney River Study art theft recovery anniversary's 13 theft-free years make finding Parrish West Panel 3A and West Panel 3B likely.

Maxfield Parrish's 1942 Ascutney River oil painting was removed in 1984 and recovered in 2004: andrea rossi @AndreaNiloc, via Twitter Sep. 28, 2016

The 13th Maxfield Parrish Ascutney River Study art theft recovery anniversary adds hope for recovering West Panel 3A and West Panel 3B on the 15th Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Murals art theft anniversary.

Two of six panels belong since June 27 or 28, 2002, on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of the FBI's top 10 unsolved art crimes. The West Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Police Department considers the theft an after-hours break-in of the Edenhurst Fine Art Gallery on fashionable Melrose Avenue.

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) designated an oil painting's disappearance from the Union Square Gallery on Sutter Street a takeaway mysterious in means and motives. Mystery enshrouds the 10.75- by 10.5-inch (27.31- by 26.67-centimeter) oil on board's emergence, 20 years later and three blocks away, at Geary Street's Weinstein Gallery, Inc.

Maxfield Parrish's missing study of Ascutney River surfaced at Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco's trendy Union Squaree; Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, 08:26:02: Prayitno / Thank You (24 Millions) views, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

The year 1984 furnished two instances of ferreting out Maxfield Parrish's (July 25, 1870-March 30, 1966) oil painting from 1942, Study for the River at Ascutney.

Paper trails got cold and even police department paperwork got destroyed in such old cases as those of the August and the November getaways in 1984. The gallery owner-operator's reminiscences hinted of a happening with a man "in drag" hoisting the Maxfield Parrish Ascutney River Study off the wall and hurrying outside. Her reconstructions indicated a short-lived incident, with its implementer intercepted within blocks by SFPD officers and the image's subsequently scuffle-scratched injuries inspiring three months of restoration.

The restored painting's joining the gallery's remaining collection jumpstarted three-block, 20-year journeys in the Maxfield Parrish Ascutney Study art theft, from Nov. 1984 to mid-July 2004.

Alma Gilbert-Smith, owner of Maxfield Parrish's Ascutney River Study at the time of its 1984 art theft, subsequently opened the Cornish Colony Museum, which operated for a while in Windsor, Vermont's former fire department; Windsor, Windsor County, southeastern Vermont; Friday, July 10, 2009, 13:57: inseriusdenial, Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Alma Gilbert-Smith, Sutter Street gallery owner-operator in California and Cornish Colony Museum founder and director in Vermont, knew that "Somebody came in late in the afternoon." That "A tall man with a walking stick and dressed in an expensive leather coat wanted to see what was displayed upstairs" looked suspicious in retrospect. The missing riverscape and the mystery man melting into street crowds motivated the subsequent author of 14 Parrish-related books to move into Parrish's New Hampshire estate.

One of the Gilbert-Smith books netted the riverscape's recovery and return when a Pacific Gas and Electric operations manager noticed the caption "Stolen. Status: Whereabouts unknown." The book's images and information occasioned Jeff Joy's observation that a basement's painting as Maxfield Parrish River Ascutney art theft casualty "jumped right out at me."

Weinstein Gallery (upper right), scene of recovery of Maxfield Parrish's Ascutney River Study (1942), anchors San Francisco's Union Square; Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, 18:13:02: Prayitno / Thank You (24 Millions) views, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

The observation prompted Joy's phoning Gilbert-Smith, Gilbert-Smith's phoning the SFPD and the SFPD's pulling the Parrish Ascutney River Study from Weinstein Gallery, Inc., by mid-July 2004.

SFPD Burglary Inspector Rich Leon qualified the unidentified clothing sales-working possessor, friend of gallery owner-operator Rowland Weinstein, as "reputable, he has a job, no criminal history." He reconstructed possession from hair salon owner-operator Pearl Shapiro, to her caretaker, to the caretaker's son since "Everyone is dead. We don't have anybody to ask."

Gilbert-Smith shared with "all of us who have been victims of a crime the message: Hey, sometimes they get returned" during the painting's 18-month national exhibitions.

The Maxfield Parrish Ascutney River Study art theft recovery anniversary toasts 13 theft-free years and transmits hope for Parrish's West Panel 3A and West Panel 3B.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Panels 3A and 3B, removed from West Hollywood's Edenhurst Fine Art Gallery during July 2002 art heist: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Art Crime Team, Public Domain, via FBI

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Maxfield Parrish's 1942 Ascutney River oil painting was removed in 1984 and recovered in 2004: andrea rossi @AndreaNiloc, via Twitter Sep. 28, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/AndreaNiloc/status/781114556240236544

Maxfield Parrish's missing study of Ascutney River surfaced at Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco's trendy Union Square; Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, 08:26:02: Prayitno / Thank You (24 Millions) views, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/prayitnophotography/4342182843/

Alma Gilbert-Smith, owner of Maxfield Parrish's Ascutney River Study at the time of its 1984 art theft, subsequently opened the Cornish Colony Museum, which operated for a while in Windsor, Vermont's former fire department; Windsor, Windsor County, southeastern Vermont; Friday, July 10, 2009, 13:57: inseriusdenial, Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windsorfirehouse.jpg

Weinstein Gallery (upper right), scene of recovery of Maxfield Parrish's Ascutney River Study (1942), anchors San Francisco's Union Square; Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, 18:13:02: Prayitno / Thank You (24 Millions) views, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/prayitnophotography/4339425306/

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Panels 3A and 3B, removed from West Hollywood's Edenhurst Fine Art Gallery during July 2002 art heist: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Art Crime Team, Public Domain, via FBI @ https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/art-theft/fbi-top-ten-art-crimes/theft-of-gertrude-vanderbilt-whitney-murals

For further information:

andrea rossi @AndreaNiloc. 28 September 2016. "Maxfield Parrish -- The river at Ascutney (1942)." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/AndreaNiloc/status/781114556240236544

Van Derbeken, Jaxon. 9 September 2004. "Serendipitous Discovery of Stolen Painting / Maxfield Parrish Admirer Finds It Near S.F. Gallery It Was Taken from 20 Years Ago." SFGate > News.
Available @ http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Serendipitous-discovery-of-stolen-painting-2726693.php