N.Y. man: I lost $1.3M artwork while drunk

MSNBC ^ | 9/1/2010

[greatdefender]

NEW YORK — Call it the lost art of drinking responsibly: A man entrusted with helping to sell a $1.3 million painting said it disappeared while he was in a drunken haze, according to a lawsuit filed by a co-owner of the canvas.

James Carl Haggerty took the painting — noted French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's circa 1857 "Portrait of a Girl" — to a Manhattan hotel on July 28 for a potential buyer to examine, Kristyn Trudgeon's lawsuit said.

Then Haggerty hung out at the hotel bar and was seen on security cameras leaving the building with the painting after midnight, according to the lawsuit.

But there was no sign of the portrait on the cameras at his Manhattan apartment building when he got home nearly two hours later, the lawsuit said.

And the next morning, Haggerty told painting co-owner Thomas A. Doyle III he "could not recall its whereabouts, citing that he had had too much to drink the previous evening," according to the lawsuit filed Monday in a Manhattan state court.

Trudgeon is seeking what she says is the roughly $1.3 million value of the painting, which spent years in the collection of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, according to museum spokeswoman Sarah Stifler.

Steady gaze News service Bloomberg reported that Haggerty would have made $25,000 if the painting, which shows a young woman with a steady gaze, wide forehead and white lace collar, was sold.

A London dealer, Offer Waterman, had been interested in buying the picture, Bloomberg cited the complaint as saying.

Haggerty didn't immediately return phone messages left Tuesday at two possible home numbers for him and at his office at a company that leases out private jets.

[November 2010]

That’s classic!

[greatdefender]

UPDATE:

Owner in drunkenly lost $1.35M painting fiasco drops suit as co-owner is unmasked as con artist

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/09/01/2010-09-01_owner_in_drunkenly_lost_135m_painting_fiasco_drops_suit_as_coowner_is_unmasked_a.html#ixzz0yNxbzVWO

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Christina Ricci, Addams Family