Art collector Clive Schurer recently found a lost painting by Dutch master Hendrik Averkamp after finding a picture of it online on an $18 throw pillow.
Last year, Schorer used a reverse image search engine to find an image Winter landscape with a skater and other charactersstolen in 1978 and now worth about $10 million, is featured on the print-on-demand website Pixels.com.
By looking at the metadata of the Pixels.com photo, Schorer was able to determine that it was taken years after the famous theft. Schurer traced the painting to a sale at a European art fair in 1995 under the name of Barent Averkamp, the artist’s nephew and student. The painting was sold to a Dutch couple who have since died. Schurer reached out to the couple’s heirs, on behalf of the Worcester Museum of Art, to inquire after the painting’s amicable return.
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in 1978, Winter landscape It was stolen from the home of Robert Stoddard, a former trustee of the Worcester Museum of Art, along with 11 other works of art. Stoddard was the museum’s former board chairman and promised many of the stolen artworks as gifts to the foundation. Only three of the works been recoveredincluding Camille Pissarro’s Bassins Duquesne et Berrigny a Dieppe, Temps Gris.
Schurer has not yet received a response from the heirs. This month. His attorneys sent a letter giving them 40 days to respond, as well as arrangements to return the paintings in return for the amount the family paid for the work. Schurer said Boston Magazine He said he would pursue criminal charges if the Dutch family did not cooperate.
Jim Willow, director emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum and expert on Dutch art, said he had always hoped to get Avercamp’s painting back.
“Avercamp is a big name and this is a real winter ski and snowboard scene,” he said. Boston Magazinefrom the beginning I mentioned the story last week. “We want Avercamp back.
Avercamp’s paintings are on display in museums such as National gallerythe Rijksmuseum In Amsterdam, and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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