Worth its weight in Goldie
Shortly after Christmas, yet another Goldie painting was stolen. What makes the New Zealand artist, who did his best work more than 100 years ago, so attractive to thieves? Ellen O’Dwyer reports.
In the sleepy days after Christmas, burglars broke into an unassuming Hamilton home and walked off with a rare cultural artefact.
They pilfered an antique clock, cutlery set and artworks, but it’s not yet clear whether the thieves knew they had their hands on a painting by one of New Zealand’s most renowned artists.
Charles Frederick Goldie’s Sleep ’Tis a Gentle Thing, depicting Nga¯ ti Maru and Nga¯ ti Pa¯ oa chief Hori Pokai, was stolen between December 27 and January 3, 2021.
Last week, three men were arrested and jointly charged with burglary in Hamilton. Police searched an address and found other stolen goods. But not the Goldie. The 1930s painting, potentially worth about $500,000, could have been sequestered to the dark recesses of an unknown safe house, rolled up and stuffed under a bed, or is lying at the bottom of the Waikato River.
The theft has drawn public intrigue and condemnation from the art world.
Experts say a piece of New Zealand heritage could be lost forever.
But the Goldie disappearance joins a string of recent art theft.
In November, thieves seized a 146-year-old Gottfried Lindauer painting, The Crown of Thorns, from a church in Upper Moutere, near Nelson.
Two days later a mysterious man appeared at the church grounds, returning a car-bootful of candle-holders, crosses and communion plates, and the Lindauer.
And in late December Waihı¯ police recovered a haul of more than 30 stolen paintings and prints at a Coromandel house.
A police spokesperson told Stuff they were not aware of any recent ‘‘significant increase’’ in art theft across the country.
Art crime expert Penelope Jackson says there’s a long history of the problem in New Zealand.
‘‘Wherever there’s art, there’s art crime,’’ the author of Art Thieves, Fakers and Fraudsters: A New Zealand Story says. ‘‘Why is it poor old Goldie, that’s the big question, isn’t it?’’
Jackson lists off multiple Goldie thefts in the past 40 years, twice from galleries in the 1970s and 80s and once from the University of Auckland Library in 2007. All works were returned after the thefts.
But in 2008, a Mosgiel couple had their Goldie stolen from their spare bedroom after an open home viewing.
‘‘[The painting] had been in the family for decades, no-one had ever photographed it, front or back. They couldn’t get the image out there.’’
Days later, a book about New Zealand Art was found at the Dunedin Public Library with pages explaining the significance of Goldie torn out.
Gottfried Lindauer works are popular victims too. In 2017, his paintings Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure, were taken in a fast smash and grab from the International Art Centre in Parnell, Auckland.
‘‘Thieves smashed the window, there was glass involved, and there was speed, there were vehicles, we know all of that from CCTV,’’ Jackson says.
Six months later, images of the artwork appeared on the dark web, claiming to offer the work for sale anywhere in the world for $1 million. Police said the listing was a scam, and it quickly disappeared.
To date, the works haven’t been recovered.
Jackson thinks Goldie and Lindauer works get stolen because ‘‘they are to New Zealand like Rembrandt is to Western Europe’’.
‘‘Goldie died in 1947 so the supply has really dried up big time. So what do you do? You either steal or forge, and stealing is probably the easier option.’’
Goldie and Lindauer: divisive ‘taonga’
Alexander Turnbull Library curator Dr Oliver Stead says Goldie and Lindauer are both artists who have dropped in and out of fashion, then experienced a resurgence.
Working in the late 19th century and early 20th century (Lindauer was older), both artists specialised in portraiture of important Ma¯ ori. Both had impressive technical training overseas.
As early as 1996, art scholar Roger Blackley suggested Goldie’s popularity as an artist was linked to thefts.
‘‘His popular fame is based largely on a spiral of recordshattering prices together with thefts, vandalisms and forgeries,’’ Blackley wrote in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
Notorious forger Karl Sim prolifically copied Goldie’s work, changing his own name to Carl Feodor Goldie to legally sign his paintings C. F. Goldie.
Stead says Goldie’s work can be divisive – it can be seen as portraying Ma¯ ori in a sentimental way, the subjects are often old, their eyes downcast or sleeping, and he gave them titles like A Noble Relic of a Noble Race.
On the other hand, a lot of the descendants of his subjects hold his work in high esteem.
‘‘In contrast Lindauer was very often commissioned by Ma¯ ori to paint for them . . . he was actually making portraits that had a function as portraits, exhibited proudly by Ma¯ ori in their own houses.’’
Both artists are renowned because they offer a window into New Zealand’s past, into Ma¯ oriPa¯ keha¯ relationships during the late 19th and early 20th century.
‘‘The best works come up beautifully when restored, and they are a taonga for the record of tu¯ puna they provide.’’
The drive to steal ar
Greed, desire, power, political protest, desperation: all can motivate someone to steal art.
Jackson says: ‘‘Greed is ‘We
can flick this and really make some money.’ The next one is desire . . . there are cases internationally where someone really, really wants the work. They are collectors by theft.’’
Artworks are an easy target because they’re easily tucked under an arm or rolled up and thrown in a bag. ‘‘If a painting’s worth $400,000 or $500,000 and you’re going to steal something, it’s probably a Goldie.’’
The irony is, while Goldie paintings are worth a hefty price at auction, the stolen work becomes ‘‘worthless’’ in the hands of thieves.
Because the image of Sleep ’Tis a Gentle Thing has circulated widely, anyone willing to pay big money for the painting would immediately know it was stolen, and refuse to touch it, Jackson says.
Arthur Tompkins agrees. ‘‘It is completely worthless to them, they won’t be able to sell it.’’
Tompkins is a Wellington District Court judge who lectures on art crime during the war in Italy, and has written the book Plundering Beauty: A History of Art Crime During War.
Internationally, stolen art can become an ‘‘underground currency’’.
‘‘There’s a fairly long history, in Europe in particular, of art being used to provide collateral for loans for other criminal activity.’’
Thieves take a painting to a dodgy dealer – say in Amsterdam or London – and get a cut of money for it.
The tactic was pioneered by members of the IRA, who stole Vermeers and Rembrandts from stately homes and used them in Amsterdam as collateral. The stolen art funded arms imports from the United States.
It’s unclear whether this sort of activity happens in New Zealand.
Jackson thinks the latest spate of art thefts are probably opportunistic, considering other antiques were stolen too.
‘‘If thieves had gone in and just taken a Goldie, then clearly they know it’s there, and that’s what they are after, but that’s not the case here.’’
‘Great art belongs to us all’
Tompkins estimates that, internationally, 60 to 70 per cent of stolen art is never recovered.
‘‘The suspicion is that the thieves find they can’t do anything with it, so they just destroy it.
‘‘They think they are going to be able to sell it, they discover they can’t, nobody is going to touch it, so they destroy it.’’
Art theft robs someone of their beloved possession, but it leaves a deep cultural loss.
National exhibitions regularly rely on loans from private collections to show work.
It’s a point that’s been made for thousands of years.
Roman statesman Cicero talked about it in the Roman Forum in 70BC when prosecuting a misbehaving former governor from Sicily.
‘‘Cicero was saying that great art belongs to all of humankind, so a loss is a loss to our shared heritage,’’ Tompkins says.
And despite the sexy art heists in novels and movies, in reality art crime is bleak, Jackson says.
More can be done to prevent it. ‘‘Often when people buy art, they get passionate about it, they fall in love with it, and the next thing is they’ve put their hand up, and they’ve paid all this money at auction, but really they don’t know enough about it.’’
Jackson suggests owners fasten their artwork securely, making it difficult for thieves to break the works off the wall.
Keep records of the work – ensure it’s well photographed, and the history of previous ownership well researched, Jackson says.
‘‘The Goldie is somebody’s treasure, but it’s also part of our history as a nation. So to lose it forever would be very sad.’’