Wicklow’s stolen paintings

Art theft is a difficult crime to track not least because some paintings undergo a name change through the years. On Tuesday, gardaí in Baltinglass said that they had "recovered all the paintings stolen" during a burglary at a house in Donard, Co Wicklow, last October.

The paintings were found at another location in Donard in a bin bag that had, apparently, been thrown into a ditch. The discovery was made by Denis Russell, a native of the village who now lives in London, but home on holiday, while "strimming furze bushes" in a field beside his house.

Gardaí named the paintings as Portrait of a Lady by Sir John Lavery; Landscape with Cottage by Paul Henry and The Fern in the Area by Jack B Yeats.

They were sold at auction by Sotheby's in London in 2001 for a combined total of approximately €95,000. Two of them had different titles then: the Lavery was auctioned as Portrait de Femme au Chapeau; and the Yeats as The Little Waterfall.

Whyte's art auctioneers in Dublin said the three paintings could now, collectively, be worth up to €180,000.

A fourth painting found by Denis Russell, but not mentioned by gardaí as having been stolen, is an unframed portrait of Samuel Beckett by Tom Byrne with an estimated value of possibly €300.

Gardaí have renewed their appeal for information about the burglary at Donard on October 22nd, 2014, and said that no arrests had been made, and that investigations are continuing.