Recovered Goya Arrives at Guggenheim

Thursday, February 15, 2007

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer

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NEW YORK —

A painting of children at play by Francisco de Goya belatedly joined an exhibit of Spanish masterpieces on Thursday after being stolen en route from an Ohio museum and then recovered.

"All's well that ends well," said Don Bacigalupi, director of the Toledo Museum of Art, who traveled to New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for the delayed installation of Goya's "Children With a Cart."

The painting was being trucked to New York in November when the drivers spent the night at a motel in Stroudsburg, Pa., leaving it unattended. They discovered it missing the next morning. Within 10 days, a tipster had alerted authorities to its whereabouts in New Jersey.

FBI spokesman James Margolin said the investigation into the theft was ongoing.

Bacigalupi said the procedure used to transport the Goya "was very typical for transport of art, with a few minor exceptions, and I think the few minor exceptions sort of added up to a perfect storm, if you will, of opportunity, which unfortunately resulted in the theft of the painting."

The painting was insured for about $1 million. It was returned undamaged to the Toledo museum, which owns it, before it was loaned to the Guggenheim as originally planned for inclusion in the show "Spanish Painting From El Greco to Picasso: Time, Truth, and History."

"After the FBI recovered it, it went back to Toledo, Ohio, to be enjoyed by the audience there and welcomed home, and then Don very graciously agreed to the loan for the next six weeks of the show," said Guggenheim Director Lisa Dennison.

The Guggenheim held a news conference Thursday _ a day on which it is closed _ to introduce the painting before it goes on public display Friday in Frank Lloyd Wright's famous spiral structure.

Goya painted "Children With a Cart" in 1778 as a model for a tapestry planned for the bedroom of a Spanish prince. The group of four children includes one boy blowing a horn and another with his back to the viewer. The naturalism contrasts with the formally posed children found in other works in the exhibit.