From Cork rubbish tip to Sotheby's - but who owns $250,000 painting?

NEGOTIATIONS WILL take place in England later this week to try to resolve a protracted dispute about the ownership of a valuable painting linked to an Anglo-Irish family in Cork.

Children Under a Palm

, a water colour by the Boston-born artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910), was found in the 1980s in Co Cork by an English tourist, Tony Varney.

The work was among a portfolio of paintings dumped close to a rubbish tip and was discovered by Mr Varney while on a fishing trip on the River Blackwater near Youghal.

Years later, in 2008, Mr Varney and his daughter Selina brought a number of the paintings to the BBC Antiques Roadshowto be valued. Experts there noted the signature of Homer on a watercolour and declared it to be a previously unknown - and very valuable - work by the artist.

A recent programme in the BBC Fake or Fortune? documentary series outlined how events unfolded when the Varneys decided to consign the painting to auction at Sotheby's. By May 2009 the painting was up for sale, valued at $150-$250,000 (€103,000-€172,000) at Sotheby's New York.

But the sale was halted at the last minute when Simon Murray, a barrister and member of a Co Cork Anglo-Irish family, turned up in Manhattan to claim ownership for his family. Efforts to broker a deal between him and the Varneys were unsuccessful and the picture was withdrawn from the auction. The painting has been in legal limbo ever since and remains in the possession of Sotheby's.

Matthew Weigman, a Sotheby's director, told The Irish Timesthat "after two years in which the parties have failed to reach a settlement", the ownership of the painting "remains unclear as the claimant has provided no information about its whereabouts between the time of his family's ownership of the picture in the 1880s and its discovery by a relative of Sotheby's consignor 100 years later".

The picture was probably painted by Homer in 1885 during a visit to the Bahamas, then a British colony. The governor of the Bahamas from 1884-1887 was Sir Henry Arthur Blake, a Limerick-born British colonial administrator. It is believed the artist was a house-guest who painted Blake's three children - Olive, Maurice and Arthur -sitting under a palm plant dressed in exotic costumes for a fancy-dress party. Blake later served in Newfoundland and Jamaica and, eventually, as governor of Hong Kong before he and his wife, Lady Edith, eventually retired to Myrtle Grove, a historic house in Youghal, Co Cork.

Sir Henry and Lady Edith are buried in the garden at Myrtle Grove which is still owned by their descendents and is today home to Mr Murray's mother, Shirley.

Mr Murray, a great-great-grandson of Blake, declined to speak to The Irish Times. However, Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register in London, spoke "on behalf of the family".

The Art Loss Register is an international company describing itself as "the world's largest private database of lost and stolen art, antiques and collectables" offering services including "item registration, search and recovery services to collectors, the art trade, insurers and worldwide law enforcement agencies".

Mr Radcliffe said the unframed painting was in a portfolio with other pictures and was stolen from the gate lodge at Myrtle Grove. He said the family did not report its theft to gardaí at the time because, although there had been a couple of minor burglaries at the property, they wereunaware that the portfolio was missing.

They were alerted to the New York auction by an article in the Daily Telegraphand contacted Sotheby's. Gardaí in Youghal have confirmed that "a complaint has been made by the family and is being investigated".

Mr Radcliffe is meeting lawyers representing the Varney family in England this week and is "hoping to negotiate a settlement which would allow the picture to be returned to Ireland to the legal owner" who would decide whether to keep the painting or sell it.