Oscar Wilde’s ring found 20 years later
A golden ring once given as a present by the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered by a Dutch art detective 20 years after it was stolen from Britain’s Oxford University. The friendship ring, a joint gift from Wilde to a fellow student in 1876, was taken during a burglary in 2002 at Magdalen College, where the legendary dandy studied.
AMSTERDAM:A golden ring once given as a present by the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered by a Dutch art detective 20 years after it was stolen from Britain’s Oxford University.
The friendship ring, a joint gift from Wilde to a fellow student in 1876, was taken during a burglary in 2002 at Magdalen College, where the legendary dandy studied. At the time, it was valued at 35,000 pounds ($45,000).
The trinket’s whereabouts remained a mystery for years and there were fears that the ring - shaped like a belt and buckle and made from 18-carat gold - had been melted down.
But Arthur Brand, a Dutchman dubbed the “Indiana
Jones of the Art World” for recovering a series of stolen artworks, used his connections to finally find it.
Mark Blandford-Baker, home bursar of Magdalen College, said they were “pleased to have back the stolen item”.
The ring was a present from Wilde and fellow student Reginald Harding to their friend William Ward in 1876 while the Irishman was a student at Magdalen.
Disaster struck in 2002 when a former college cleaner named Eamonn Andrews broke into Magdalen, got drunk, then stole the ring and two unrelated medals.
The college at the time offered a reward for the ring’s safe return, but after he was caught, the burglar told a court that he had sold the golden band to a scrap dealer for 150 pounds.