[CPProt.net] Collector finds his stolen art headed for auction, sues

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Collector finds his stolen art headed for auction, sues
By Stephen Kurkjian, Globe Staff  |  September 30, 2005

In 1978, Michael Bakwin went from being a quiet art collector to being the
victim of the largest unsolved robbery from a private residence in
Massachusetts. Returning from a holiday weekend, he found that seven
precious paintings had been stolen from his Stockbridge home.

And now he feels he's a victim again, as he finds himself forced to go to
court to prevent four of the stolen works from being put up for auction at
Sotheby's.

The paintings, worth about $3 million, surfaced last spring in London, in
the possession of the Erie International Trading Co., an obscure
organization with a Panamanian address. When Bakwin learned that the company
had plans to auction the works, he asked the Art Loss Register, a firm that
tracks stolen art, to intervene.

Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, said he wants to know
who the owners of Erie International Trading are, how they got the
paintings, and what they may know about the theft.

''Until we know more about the circumstances of how they gained these
paintings, we have to assume that Erie Trading knew they were stolen when
they bought them, or worse, knows who stole them," Radcliffe said.

He added: ''If we learn that they are legitimate people who gained these
paintings through no untoward means, we are willing to step aside."

Andrew Lafferty, a London lawyer representing Erie International, declined
to comment on the lawsuit or on how the company had secured the paintings.

No one has been charged with the theft of the collection, which was
assembled by Bakwin's parents beginning in the 1930s. But one of the
paintings, the most valuable of the lot, was eventually recovered, with
Radcliffe's help.

It was a still-life masterwork by Paul Cezanne; it surfaced unexpectedly in
Switzerland in 1999. And to get it back, Radcliffe agreed to give Erie
International title to the other six works.

Radcliffe said he had signed the contract under duress, believing it to be
the only way to recover the Cezanne. He said the deal, therefore, should be
voided.

''If I wanted to get [the Cezanne] back at the time, I had to sign that
agreement. And I told them so at the time," Radcliffe said in a recent
telephone interview.

Once the Cezanne -- ''Bouilloire et Fruits," or pitcher and fruit -- was in
his hands, Bakwin decided he could never provide security for it. He put the
painting up for auction, and a collector bought it for almost $30 million.

The other six paintings are vastly less valuable. The four now perhaps
headed for auction are two portraits by Chaim Soutine, an early 20th century
expressionist, and two others by French painters Maurice de Vlaminck and
Maurice Utrillo.

Even though these are lesser pieces, Radcliffe said, he will not allow the
auction to proceed without a legal protest.

Lawyers for the Art Loss Register filed suit in July, asking that a London
judge order the paintings returned to Bakwin. A hearing on the case is set
for next month.

''Without knowing more about them, there is no way that these people should
stand to profit from the auction of stolen paintings," Radcliffe said of
Erie International Trading. ''It simply serves to encourage further art
theft."

Radcliffe said he has a clearer sense now of what happened to the artworks
after they were taken from Bakwin's house. When working to recover the
Cezanne, Radcliffe said, he was told by an Erie International lawyer that
the paintings had been spirited to Russia and hidden there until a British
resident brought them to Switzerland in search of a buyer.

But Radcliffe said he now suspects the paintings had been taken to
Switzerland shortly after the theft and stored there. The thieves, he said,
apparently hoped to make use of a provision in Swiss law under which people
can claim legal possession of stolen items if they can show they had bought
them in good faith and had held them for five years or more.

Although he declined to comment on the specifics of the case, Special Agent
Robert Wittman, who heads the FBI's National Art Crime unit, said he was
aware of Bakwin's lawsuit and that the FBI tracks ''for intelligence
reasons" developments in all major art thefts. The statute of limitations
for the actual break-in at Bakwin's house expired in the mid-1980s, but
anyone who moved the stolen artwork across state lines or overseas during
the past six years can still be prosecuted.

Stephen Kurkjian can be reached via kurkjian at globe.com.