(13 Nov 1999) English/Nat
Three paintings stolen nearly 21 years ago from a museum in San Francisco have been recovered at a New York auction house.
The paintings, one of which may be a Rembrandt, were left anonymously at the William Doyle Galleries on Tuesday.
A note left with the paintings said they had been taken from San Francisco.
On Christmas Eve 1978 four paintings were stolen from M.H. de Young Memorial San Francisco museum.
The culprits were never caught and the paintings have been missing for years.
But on Tuesday three of them were returned to the William Doyle Galleries.
The whereabouts of the fourth painting, "Harbour Scene" by Willem van de Velde is still a mystery.
At the time of the theft, "Portrait of a Rabbi" was considered an authentic Rembrandt and valued at one (m) million U-S dollars.
But experts have since said it is likely to have been painted by one of Rembrandt's followers.
If Rembrandt had painted the picture, it would now be worth 20 (m) million dollars.
The paintings were left at the Doyle gallery on one of the days the auction house devotes to members of the public who want to auction their own art.
As the day came to a close, an employee noticed an unclaimed bag and looked inside.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"But our first reaction was OK, we'll see what these are, but it wasn't the kind of thing where 'Oh my gosh, these are stolen Rembrandts."
SUPER CAPTION: Allan Fausel, Vice President and Director of Painting, Doyle Galleries, New York
Lynn Federle Orr, the fine arts curator of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, flew to New York and identified the paintings as those taken from the de Young museum in 1978.
The paintings were in their frames but were rather extensively damaged by an apparent attempt to clean them.
One of them, Aert van der Neer's "River Scene at Night (Harbour Scene)," was returned in three pieces.
The other stolen painting was "Interior of the Church of Saint Lawrence, Rotterdam," by Anthonie de Lorme.
With the exception of the possible Rembrandt, the three others were worth a combined 75-thousand U-S dollars at the time of the theft.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We think it's probably a good Samaritan or something like that who knew about these pieces either through a family member or a spouse or something like that from the, or a partner , where the original person may have died and left the paintings in the house or their possession and felt uncomfortable with them. Or perhaps this person had a change of heart and wanted to do the right thing."
SUPER CAPTION: Allan Fausel, Vice President and Director of Painting, Doyle Galleries, New York
Authorities believe more than one thief slipped into the de Young gallery through a skylight in 1978, and then left by climbing the drawers of a 17th-century Dutch cabinet.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"They are still in the custody of the FBI as we speak and I think they'll be in San Francisco shortly where they will be re-assessed by various art historians and technical methods."
SUPER CAPTION: Allan Fausel, Vice President and Director of Painting, Doyle Galleries, New York
The FBI is still investigating the thefts.
The paintings are expected back in San Francisco next week, when the "Portrait of a Rabbi" will be tested to try to discover who may have painted it.

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