Silly Old Twit

Some time ago I decided to sell a picture I owned to someone I knew. They gave me a small deposit and to make a long story short that was the last I saw of it. Until that is I saw it in the window of The Apollo Gallery in Dawson Street in Dublin. I went in to the gallery and explained that a couple of week previously it had been on my wall and asked who gave it to them. I further identified the picture by telling them what was written on the reverse. The picture was a pencil portrait of General Owen O’Duffy by the irish artist Sean Keating. I left the shop within perhaps a minute and was not in any way argumentative but just mentioned the above facts.
It was in their window for quite a long while with a price tag of several thousand euros but just recently it has gone from there so I assume they have sold it. As you can imagine I am not very happy about any of this. The picture had been in my possession for many years before it was stolen ( and in spite of the circumstances it was actually stolen) and I was hoping they would just return it but I heard nothing from them since that one day I went into their gallery shop.
The normal ethical thing for the shop to have done would have been to simply return it. Let me explain. Very few people have any proof that an item which was stolen from them was ever in fact their property. And even if they had a receipt this does not prove anything as of course they may have sold the item at some point. So if you have something stolen from you you cannot actually prove that it has been stolen in the first place. But if it has been robbed by a common criminal then that person has to satisfy the police that it is his and if he does not or can not explain where he got it from then he can be charged and you can have your property returned. So far it’s simple. But what if your property is either sold to an auction room , art gallery or second hand shop either directly or indirectly.
Such businesses may or may not have receipts but most important they have a legal reason to have , let say in the case of an art gallery shop, x number of paintings at any given time. So if you find something that was stolen from you turn up in a shop window you are in a very vulnerable position. Thousands of items of stolen property are sold in these kind of place and while they may do all they can to check that these items are legally obtained there is a limit to what they can do. And as I said very often you cannot prove that the item was yours in the first place.
The solution to this is quite simple. A reputable shop or business will just return the property. You might think that this leaves these people open to being fleeced big time but this is not so. The reality is that most people are honest. But there are of course the ‘con’ men but usually these people will have been involved in this kind of thing or some kind of criminal activity before so it’s quite easy to check this out. As for those who might not be known to the police suffice to say that it is not too difficult to figure out who you are dealing with once you are so to speak on your guard. In my case for instance this gallery could have asked the police who I was and they would very soon have reported back that at sixty years of age I had no criminal record and was quite well known in the secondhand business and had been selling and buying works of art for years with no complaint from anyone. And then they could just have returned my property. It must be noted here that all business of this sort budget for this as there ultimatly is no way to avoid buying or selling something that was not legally yours to sell in the first place. This then is the actual reality of how this kind of thing is dealt with on a day to day basis by reputable businesses. But of course a business does not have to do this. It can , and some do , just shrug it’s shoulders and say nothing and put the money in their pocket in the knowledge that there is after all nothing you can do about it.
In the case of my picture I was able as I have said to say what was written on the reverse inside the frame. Also I could explain where I had got it as it had been purchased from a well know reputable Dublin auction firm and there would have been a record of the sale.
What all this means is that if you have a picture stolen or taken illegally from you and it turns up in The Apollo Gallery then it’s just your bad luck as there is no chance that they will do as any reputable business would do and return it. And keep in mind that very few thieves steal for their own personal use but do so in order to sell the item on and every or just about every work of art that gets stolen is sold on the open market soon after.
I have no reason to believe that The Apollo Gallery deal in stolen property and have not implied , nor do I wish to imply that they do in any way. But I do say and say it openly, that their general ethic leaves much to be desired. Theft is a legal concept but honorable people are prepared to go beyond this and where possible do the right thing. The alternative to this is to say , “I have not broken the law so it’s just your hard luck”. Most people thankfully do not take this attitude.