New York painting stolen 60 years ago turns up in Lancashire village

The painting is by celebrated French artist Edouard Léon Cortès

A painting stolen from a New York art gallery 60 years ago has been found 3,000 miles away in a Lancashire village.

Art conservationists are celebrating after Flower Market Madeline by Edouard Léon Cortès turned up in Mawdesley.

Art Recovery International was alerted to the painting when a Lancashire-based art dealer offered it up for sale online.

The painting was originally displayed in the Herbert Arnot Gallery.

It was one of 3,000 works stolen over a 12-year period in the 1950s and 1960s by the former gallery manager Louis Edelman.

Edelman was eventually arrested in Chicago by the FBI in the 1960s and convicted of transporting stolen artworks across state lines.

He was jailed for two years and given a $10,000 fine, but most of the paintings were never recovered.

FBI agents foiled Edelman's scheme in the 1960s and recovered a number of works

Flower Market Madeline, which depicts a flower market in the style of other street artworks by the French artist, was bought in November 2022 by Carnes Fine Art from the Manchester-based Capes Dunn auction house.

Bradley Carnes, director of Carnes Fine Art, said he paid more than £10,000 for the work and said he was shocked when Art Recovery International contacted him after he advertised it for sale on his website.

He said: "I always look for provenance, so gallery labels, certificates, receipts and so forth to make sure that the painting is actually genuine and not a fake, but you don't think about them being stolen.

"Initially I thought it was a scam, but through a quick Google search I found out the person contacting me was the head of Art Recovery International.

"From the outset, we got on really well and we just made sure that this painting got back to its rightful owner in New York."

Mr Carnes was eventually reimbursed for the painting.

Christopher Marinello, a lawyer and founder of Art Recovery International, spent several months unwinding the sale.

He found that the painting had been consigned to Capes Dunn in 2022 by a Cheshire estate who confirmed that it was acquired from the MacConnal-Mason Gallery in London.

Mr Marinello said: "We are very grateful to Bradley Carnes, Capes Dunn, and their vendor for releasing this stolen painting unconditionally to the Arnot Gallery.

"While in this instance we were able to convince many of the parties to reimburse the other, eventually there will be those who are out of luck.

"I cannot stress enough the importance of performing due diligence and authentication checks which would have uncovered this stolen painting decades earlier."

Mr Marinello urged anyone buying or selling paintings by Edouard-Leon Cortés to check with the Arnot Gallery for proper authentication.

"We have been recovering one or two pictures per year from this 60-year-old theft and we're never going to give up until every last one is returned," he said.

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