Police probe mum of Boris love child in art ‘theft’ row
AFTER arts consultant Helen Macintyre gave birth to Boris Johnson’s love child, judges ruled that the public had a right to know about the Foreign Secretary’s ‘reckless’ behaviour.
Now Miss Macintyre, 43, has become embroiled in another awkward legal wrangle through her latest married lover, raffish art dealer Baron Cyrille de Gunzburg, 54.
I can disclose that Helen, right, is being investigated by Kent Police over a dispute with an art collector, Antony Wild.
Wild employed Baron de Gunzburg as a consultant on his extensive collection and agreed to buy a £4,000 half share in a work by Italian painter Vincenzo Marinelli. The other half was owned by Helen’s consultancy, Macintyre Art Advisory.
However, when Wild later inquired about the drawing, Trasporto del Mahamal alla Mecca, he came to understand that it was apparently now fully owned by Miss Macintyre.
‘I was shocked,’ says Wild. ‘ Some years ago, Baron de Gunzburg, who represented my small art investment company at the time, suggested I buy a half share in the painting from Helen Macintyre. I agreed to do so for 4,500 euros.’ Wild has now heard that Miss Macintyre believes she bought the half- share back from his company via Baron de Gunzburg. ‘But I was neither told about it or received any money,’ Wild tells me. ‘I have been asking her repeatedly for my money back, but she has not responded. Finally, I brought the matter to the police’s attention and they are now investigating, on the basis of evidence I have presented to them.’ Yesterday, Baron de Gunzburg, a French aristocrat whose extended family is well known in the financial and art worlds, declined to comment, while Miss Macintyre was not available when I tried to reach her. The baron has been living at Miss Macintyre’s vast 18thcentury manor house in Kent since his English wife, Diana, 56, ‘kicked him out’ of their marital home in Paris. Diana has been pursuing him through the courts in France over financial support for her and their daughter. A Kent Police spokesman confirmed it was looking into the claims: ‘Officers are investigating the circumstances to assess whether any criminal offences have taken place.’