Painting bought by pensioner worth $50M
ROME — An Italian pensioner who unknowingly bought a stolen Gauguin for a pittance has been allowed to keep it after it was valued at $50 million.
The man, who has requested anonymity out of fear the painting could attract thieves, acquired the work along with another piece at an art sale in Turin in 1975.
The auctioneers told him they were worthless “rubbish,” but they were in fact an 1889 Gauguin entitled Fruits on a table or still life with a small dog, and a work by Pierre Bonnard entitled Woman with two armchairs, now thought to be worth $850,000.
The paintings originally were owned by Mathilda Marks, the daughter of Michael Marks, the founder of British retailer Marks & Spencer. She died in 1964 and the paintings were stolen in 1970 from the flat where her American husband lived in Regent’s Park, London.
The thieves smuggled the paintings by train through France, intending to go to Italy, but panicked while waiting to cross the border and left them on a train heading toward Turin.
They were found by railway inspectors and were stored for five years in a lost property office before being put up for auction by Italy’s railway network.
A Fiat worker, known only as Nicolo, went to the railway auctions as a hobby and bought the two paintings for 45,000 lire — worth about $35 today.
Not realizing their value, he hung them on the wall of his kitchen, first in Turin and later, after he retired, in Syracuse, Sicily. It was the curiosity of his son, who had an interest in art history, that eventually made him think the paintings might be valuable.
By comparing a dedication on the Gauguin painting with examples of the artist’s handwriting, they realized they had a masterpiece on their hands.
They contacted a unit of the Italian police that deals with art and antiquities, who along with art experts confirmed earlier this year that the works were by Gauguin and Bonnard.
The paintings were then sequestered by police, who set about trying to establish their rightful ownership. They worked with Scotland Yard in London to try to discover whether anyone might have a legitimate claim to the artworks.
But Marks and her husband, Terence Kennedy, had no children and no claimants came forward.
“I acquired the painting in good faith and that has been recognized by the authorities in Rome,” Nicolo said.
The decision to award the paintings to the pensioner was made by a court in Rome, based on information provided by a unit of the Carabinieri police.
Nicolo plans to sell the Gauguin to take his wife on the honeymoon they could never afford: a journey between Trieste, in Italy’s northeast, and Vienna.
“I’m already in negotiations over the sale of the Gauguin,” the 70-year-old said. “Lots of private collectors have contacted me and I’m considering the offers along with my family.”
He said he would keep the Bonnard because it had sentimental value.
He plans to buy a farm outside Syracuse and hopes to use the rest of his anticipated fortune to assure a comfortable future for his children and grandchildren.
He admitted it had been “a stroke of luck” that he had bought the paintings.
“Maybe I had an intuition. I just liked them. When I took them home I said to myself, ‘I don’t care who painted them, I find them beautiful,’ ” he said.