Thieves Get $15-37 Million in Art From Irish Mansion

DUBLIN, Ireland â€”  Thieves stole 17 Old Master paintings worth at least $15 million in a night raid on an Irish mansion today. Youths out fishing found seven of the less valuable paintings hours later abandoned near a truck.

The paintings were stolen from Russborough House, the home of diamond millionaire Sir Alfred Beit in County Wicklow, and included works by Vermeer, Goya, Rubens, Velasquez and Gainsborough.

Police valued the haul in excess of $15 million, but British art historians said the Vermeer alone was worth that much, and the stolen works might be worth as much as $37 million.

Seven of the paintings were recovered this afternoon when three schoolboys on a fishing trip found them beside an abandoned Datsun panel truck about three miles from Russborough House.

2 Paintings Damaged

“They were the least valuable of those stolen,� a police spokesman said.

The gang used two getaway trucks and “obviously decided to put all the pictures into one truck and dumped seven of them because they would not fit,� the spokesman said. “Two of the pictures recovered were damaged, one badly.�

The paintings stolen included Vermeer’s “Woman Writing a Letter,� a portrait by Goya of Dona Antonia Zarote and two portraits by Rubens.

The raid was a repeat of the heist at Russborough House 12 years ago when the outlawed Irish Republican Army made off with 19 masterworks in a $12-million raid led by Dr. Rose Dugdale, an English heiress turned revolutionary.

2nd Theft of 2 Paintings

Both the Goya and the Vermeer were among the works stolen in that raid. All the paintings were recovered within a few months.

Beit, 83, said in London that today’s heist was probably the work of a paramilitary group in a bid to raise cash.

The pictures were “not fully insured� but were so well known that “they are virtually unsalable,� Beit said. Police said no one claimed responsibility for the raid. No ransom demands were reported.

Beit, who gave the Russborough House collection to the Irish nation in 1978, said a new alarm system had been installed and “we thought it was foolproof.�