Posted on 11/22/2022 3:05:45 PM PST by nickcarraway
Belle et Belle gallery has now been dissolved, closing the chapter on a decade-long criminal investigation
A major French criminal court case reached a verdict last week after a judge pronounced the "dissolution" of the Parisian gallery Belle et Belle, which offered dozens of drawings and prints stolen by a handyman from the daughters of Jacqueline Picasso and the gallerist Aimé Maeght.
In a ruling on 18 November, the owners of Belle et Belle, the 80-year-old Anne Pfeffer and her husband Herbert, were found guilty of having purchased and concealed stolen art. They have been given suspended jail sentences of two years and one year respectively, and were ordered to pay a total of around €400,000 in fines and indemnities. They are now banned from the art dealing profession for five years.
Both Anne and Herbert Pfeffer maintained their innocence and denied any wrongdoing during their trial, which took place from 5-7 October. But last week, the court found they were "well aware" that the works they sold or detained had been stolen from the two heiresses.
The ruling provides a degree of closure to a decade-long investigation. According to Catherine Hutin, Jacqueline Picasso’s daughter, and Sylvie Baltazart-Eon, Aimé Maeght’s daughter, at least 553 drawings and original prints by Picasso, worth more than €13.5m, were stolen between 2006 and 2008 from their neighbouring houses in Paris by the handyman Freddy Muchenbach, who used their keys in their absence. Muchenbach, was detained for four months in 2011 and released because the three-year statute of limitation for his crimes had run out. Two sheets bearing several of Picasso’s drawings which had been cut into pieces for sale were considered damaged beyond repair by the court.
The court's ruling can be challenged on appeal, but it is immediately enforceable. It will also help facilitate the recovery of the remaining 500-odd drawings and prints still missing from the thefts, should they be found, back to Hutin and Baltazart-Eon.
In the theatrical film Bean (1997) the Rowan Atkinson character is a humble guard mistaken for an intellectually revered art expert. While alone he sneezes on the original Whistler’s Mother and then goes from bad to worse as he desperately tries to rub it off, clean it and use chemical detergents that end up dissolving a portion of the paint. He substitutes a common poster copy in the frame for display which the critics and crowds admire. He has the original at home.
Mug shot.....
Witness: I knew it. I saw that man. I saw him.
HMMMM They picked a U.S. painting.
And flipping the bird, too —how rude!
I’ve seen that guy. I was just finishing my 12th beer when....
My aunt has two Picasso sketches. They got them years ago. They are surprisingly affordable. Might have to get some while our money has a little bit of value.
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