Untacked

88 FA L L 2 014 U N TAC K E D It seemed no mental alarms went off for staff of the Rolling Rock Hunt Club in western Pennsylvania when, one evening in January of 2006, two service workers trundled past with rolled-up carpets and loaded them into their van. By the time anyone noticed the two Franklin B. Voss paintings missing from the clubhouse and put together that the club's Persian rugs hadn't, in fact, been scheduled to be cleaned, it was far too late. The estimated value of the entire haul was nearly $70,000, and among several heisted items were two Voss foxhunting paintings that had hung in the Club for 70 years. They have never been recovered—or if they have been, it's been handled quietly, just as the news of the theft itself was. Rolling Rock's management did not respond to interview requests for this story, and the club didn't provide information when the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review pub- lished a follow-up piece on the unsolved theft in 2011. The newspaper's reporter, Paul Peirce, noted that police reports indicated mem- bers of the Mellon family [today Sophie Mellon serves as one of Rolling Rock's masters] had commissioned Voss directly to paint the two missing works sometime in the 1930s. Paul Mellon, a contemporary and friend of Voss', also received a portrait of his horse, entitled Dublin, as a gift from his mother in 1937; it sold at auction for $28,200 in 2000. "[Township police Chief Michael] Ma- trunics and county Detective Will Brown said the FBI's special unit on art theft was called in from Washington at the outset, but the lack of photographs and informa- tion on the missing pieces hindered the search," Peirce wrote. Police reports also noted that just weeks before the theft, RRHC had invited Peter Winants, a former Chronicle editor and publisher, art expert and member of the National Sporting Library and Mu- seum's board of directors, to speak at the club about his book, The Sporting Art of Franklin B. Voss. "It's our understanding that everyone at Mr. Winants' presentation, including Mr. Winants, was pretty excited when he said no one ever knew the two Franklin B. Voss paintings displayed at the club even existed," Brown told the Tribune-Review. Little more than a month later, the pieces were gone, and they haven't been seen since. The case remains open. If you have any information, call Ligonier Township, Pa., police at 724-238-5105 or Westmore- land County detectives at 724-830-3287. AN AMERICAN UNSOLVED MYSTERY TRAVEL THE HORSE IN ART decades. His cache also includes other equine paint- ings by Daumier, Delacroix and Vernet, but the full list of items still has not been widely released. Gurlitt's final surprise came to light after his death in May: He'd named the Kunstmuseum Bern in Swit- zerland—with which he'd had no previous relation- ship at all—his sole heir. Unless the descendants of previous owners can prove their family's works were stolen, Gurlitt's entire collection will be gifted to the museum. "e Board of Trustees and directors of Kun- stmuseum Bern are surprised and delighted," the museum announced in a statement, "but at the same time do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnifi- cent bequest brings with it a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particu- lar of a legal and ethical nature." In July, Kunstmuseum Bern's board of directors voted to hire a legal team to assess their options going forward—a process they expect to take at least six months. "e relevant authorities in Munich and Berlin have been informed and contacts established," the board announced in their last public statement, on July 4. "e goal of current investigation is to estab- lish a solid basis for making a decision on whether the Kunstmuseum Bern will accept or waive the contents of the estate." And so, despite all the mysteries solved and ques- tions answered, a conclusion seems no more immi- nent. Perhaps Marc's Tower of Blue Horses will emerge one day via a ransom call from an anonymous mer- chant's lawyer. And maybe David Toren will one day get to enjoy Two Riders on the Beach with his family after its 75-year absence. Wolfgang B üche may even get to return the little Marc watercolor to his museum three-quarters of a century after it was stolen. Only time will tell. Even after it's been recovered, vanished art surfaces slowly.

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