Baltimore Museum Renoir Art Theft November 1951: A Riverscape Returns

Summary: Nobody expected a 61-year-old Baltimore Museum Renoir art theft casualty's emergence shortly after the first anniversary of the Houston Renoir art theft.

Homecoming display of Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine during "The Renoir Returns" exhibit, running from Sunday, March 30, to Sunday, July 20, 2014: Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, via Allianz press release Thursday, April 3, 2014

Astuteness averted personal tragedy in the Houston Renoir art theft Sept. 8, 2011, and professional tragedy 12 months later, almost 61 years after the Baltimore Museum Renoir art theft Nov. 16-17, 1951.

The first incident brought charges of armed robbery, with the homeowner blocking access to her 10-year-old son sleeping upstairs but not to her Renoir painting downstairs. The second considered the skill set of journalists, such as Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira, who compete with auctioneers in checking provenance of lesser known artworks.

Destruction describes the feared fate of stolen art that disappears from rumors even though the Norman Rockwell Lazybones art theft recovery March 29-31, 2017, demonstrated otherwise. Theft exiled Lazybones from one home's foyer to another's kitchen for 40 years and On the Shore of the Seine from a museum to a residence.

Baltimore police department records furnish the original report with the finding that "There was no evidence of forced entrance" anywhere in the Baltimore Museum of Art. The report gives executive assistant James M. Porter Jr.'s statement that "some one [sic] stole" Pierre-Auguste Renoir's (Feb. 25, 1841-Dec. 3, 1919) Paysage Bords de Seine. It has an incident occurrence sometime between 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:00 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time) Friday and 1:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. UTC) Saturday.

Museum records indicate that, like the Art Gallery of New South Wales art theft in Sydney, Australia, June 10, 2007, insurance claim payouts invite replacement artwork. Edgar Degas' (July 19, 1834-Sept. 27, 1917) Self-Portrait from about 1856 thereby joined European collections, as object number 1953.205, after the Baltimore Museum Renoir art theft.

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, located on the Seine's right bank in the 8th arrondissement of Paris (8e arrondissement de Paris), is one of the City of Lights' oldest art galleries and also claims status, according to provenance paper trails, as the first known purchaser of Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine: Erwmat, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Nobody knew the whereabouts of the oil on linen damask until it kindled an auction for Sept. 29, 2012, and that auction's cancellation Sept. 28, 2012. Verification of authenticity from the painting's first known purchaser and seller, Bernheim-Jeune art gallery in Paris, France, led to The Potomack Company's listing in Alexandria, Virginia.

The gallery's mention of the purchasers' names from Nov. 22, 1925, or Jan. 11, 1926, motivated a Washington Post reporter to move quickly through museum documents. Ian Shapira noticed the notification of Herbert Louis May (July 28, 1877-1960), Saidie Adler Lehman's (Feb. 18, 1879-May 27, 1951) second husband, as last known purchaser. On Sept. 25, 2012, almost 61 years after the Baltimore Museum Renoir art theft, he obtained verification of provenance through Saidie A. May Bequest paper trails.

Estate and museum correspondence, documents and inventories prove May's artworks, in the midst of probate at the time of the theft, passing into the permanent collection.

Documents at 10 Art Museum Drive, within Johns Hopkins University's downtown campus, and at Fireman's Fund Insurance Company headquarters at Novato, California, quantify a claim payout. The paid $2,500 claim, the police report-described, replaced "river scene in pink and blue, weeds in green" and the suggested good-faith possession qualify as ownership queries. They resulted in the riverscape's seizure Sept. 28, 2012-Jan. 31, 2014, under Gregg Horner, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge of the Renoir case. The ruling Jan. 10, 2014, by Leonie Brinkema, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia since Oct. 20, 1993, solved legal title-holding ownership.

Nothing thus far tells for sure the correct answers to the means, motives, opportunities and whereabouts of the perpetrator of the Baltimore Museum Renoir art theft.

Will "Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow With Flowers in Her Hair," painted in 1919 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and stolen Thursday, Sep. 8, 2011, from West Houston, Texas, during an armed robbery, resurface?: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 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:

Homecoming display of Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine during "The Renoir Returns" exhibit, running from Sunday, March 30, to Sunday, July 20, 2014: Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, via Allianz press release Thursday, April 3, 2014, @ https://www.allianz.com/en/press/news/business/insurance/news_2014-04-03.html/

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, located on the Seine's right bank in the 8th arrondissement of Paris (8e arrondissement de Paris), is one of the City of Lights' oldest art galleries and also claims status, according to provenance paper trails, as the first known purchaser of Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine: Erwmat, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gallerie_Bernheim-Jeune_avenue_Matignon_à_Paris.JPG

Will "Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow With Flowers in Her Hair," painted in 1919 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and stolen Thursday, Sep. 8, 2011, from West Houston, Texas, during an armed robbery, resurface?: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Public Domain, via FBI @ https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/new-top-ten-art-crime

For further information:

Ancestry.com. "Saidie Adler May in the U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current." U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Available @ http://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=iwv77&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gss=angs-c&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=saidie%20adler&gsfn_x=0&gsln=may&gsln_x=0&msypn__ftp=maryland&msbdy=1879&msddy=1951&catbucket=rstp&MSAV=1&MSV=0&uidh=ft7&pcat=34&h=114344709&dbid=60525&indiv=1&ml_rpos=1

Brown, Anne Mannix; Novak, Jessica; and Gisel, Hanna. 27 March 2014. "Renoir's On the Shore of the Seine Returns to the BMA in Special Exhibition Celebrating Collector Saidie May." Baltimore MD: Baltimore Museum of Art.
Available @ https://artbma.org/documents/press/RELEASE_RenoirExhibitionUpdate_.pdf

Holland, Lucie. 5 September 2012. "'Lost' Renoir Painting at Potomack Company's Sept. 29 Auction." Alexandria VA: The Potomack Company.
Available @ http://www.potomackcompany.com/press/current/020)%20Lost%20Renoir%20Painting%20at%20Potomack%20Company%20September%2029%20Auction.pdf

JewishGen, comp. "Sadie Adler May in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR)." JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.
Available @ http://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=JG_BurialRegistry&h=2089042&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=iwv77&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&rhSource=60525

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 June 2017. "New South Wales Art Gallery van Mieris Art Theft June 10, 2007." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/new-south-wales-art-gallery-van-mieris.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 30 June 2017. "Norman Rockwell Painting Lazybones Art Theft Anniversary: Lost No More." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/norman-rockwell-painting-lazybones-art.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 September 2017. "Baltimore Museum Renoir Art Theft Solved, Not Houston Renoir Art Theft." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/09/baltimore-museum-renoir-art-theft.html

McCauley, Mary Carole. 15 February 2014. "A First Look at Stolen Renoir Reveals, Retains Some Secrets." The Baltimore Sun > Collections > Baltimore Museum.
Available @ http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2014-02-15/entertainment/bs-ae-renoir-returns-20140215_1_wayne-biggs-stolen-renoir-marcia-martha-fuqua/2

Shapira, Ian. 27 March 2014. "'Flea Market' Renoir Returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art Six Decades After Its Theft." The Washington Post > Local.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/flea-market-renoir-returns-to-the-baltimore-museum-of-art-six-decades-after-its-theft/2014/03/26/a79df14e-b517-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html?utm_term=.1a2b5e6463d1