A FORMER banker and businessman who went bankrupt failed to admit his art collection contained a long-lost masterpiece by JMW Turner valued at £20million, a court heard yesterday.
Jonathan Weal was caught out when he appeared on television expressing his delight that the seafaring scene was on the brink of verification as a work by one of Britain’s greatest artists, it is alleged.
The broadcast was seen by the official receiver who dealt with the former multimillionaire property developer’s bankruptcy over £290,000 unpaid debts.
Weal’s art collection also contained nine other potentially valuable artworks, including what is thought to be a pencil sketch by Picasso, the Inner London Crown Court was told.
Weal, 57, bought the 13in x 10in oil panel, entitled Fishing Boats In A Stiff Breeze, for £3,700 at an auction in 2004 and suspected it was a Turner piece that had been considered lost for decades.
The prosecution claim that while the bankruptcy was being negotiated the painting had been valued by insurers at £400,000, later increased to £20million.
Klentiana Mahmutaj, prosecuting on behalf of the Department for Business, said: “Mr Weal was required by law to declare all property he owns but failed to do so. When he bought it, the defendant believed this could be a painting by the famous artist Turner.
“As a result, he spent a great deal of time in trying to get it authenticated.”
It took Weal 3,000 hours to have the provenance of the oil confirmed by experts, the court was told.
Art historians dated the oil on panel masterwork to 1805, the same year Turner painted one of his most celebrated masterpieces, The Battle Of Trafalgar.
Choy Mooi, the official receiver, told the court Weal had listed virtually worthless possessions in bankruptcy paperwork, including his underpants, crockery and a broken watch, but he made no mention of the art.
Seven months after his final interview with Mrs Mooi, she was at home watching the regional ITV News programme London Tonight.
It was the first she had heard of the painting or any other canvases in Weal’s collection, court heard.
The art was taken in trust after Weal’s TV appearance.
In follow-up interviews with Mrs Mooi, t he defendant claimed he thought the paintings were included under the
the category of “furniture” on his bankruptcy assessment form. The prosecutor told the court: “Mr Weal said the Turner was a ‘work in progress’ rather than an asset. It gives you an insight into his frame of mind that even before he was made bankrupt there had been an insurers’ valuation of at least £400,000.
“His explanation that he believed the paintings had zero value and were disclosed by telling the official receiver that he owned only ‘second hand furniture’ is simply absurd.”
The jury was told a sketch in Weal’s collection was described as “Picasso showing a broken glass”. There were also paintings by Charles Coleman (18071874), the Yorkshire-born artist known for his landscape and animal scenes.
Weal’s property business had a turnover of about £200,000 a year in the five years before his bankruptcy and he was earning £150,000 a year, the court heard. The businessman owned properties including a Grade II-listed lodge house in Chislehurst, Kent, valued at £950,000 and a penthouse apartment in Blackheath, south-east London, worth £1.3million.
Weal, of Beckenham, south London, denies two charges of “non-disclosure of property by bankrupt”. He faces up to two years’ imprisonment if convicted.
The trial continues.