The FBI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for help in recovering two N.C. Wyeth paintings stolen from a home in Maine.
The announcement comes a month after a man was convicted of illegally transporting four other N.C. Wyeth paintings stolen from the same apartment in May 2013.
The recovered paintings were found in a Beverly Hills pawn shop in December and estimated to be worth $2 million.
The timing of the reward suggests that the trail may have run cold on the two remaining paintings.
N.C. Wyeth is the patriarch of a family of painters that has become associated with the Brandywine Valley, including his son Andrew and grandson, Jamie. N.C. Wyeth purchased 18 acres of land near Chadds Ford with the proceeds from his illustrations for "Treasure Island."
Christine Podmaniczky is the curator of the N.C. Wyeth collection at the Brandywine River Museum of Art. She says the stolen paintings epitomize the work of N.C. Wyeth in his heyday.
“They’re filled with action, they’re filled with romance and drama, and from 1911 to 1925 he was at his prime.”
The paintings are based on illustrations Wyeth created at his Chadds Ford studio. “Go, Dutton and that right speedily…” for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Black Swan” and “The Encounter on Freshwater Cliff” for Charles Kingsley’s book, “Westward Ho.”
The Brandywine River Museum of Art has several paintings in its collection from both series.
Podmaniczky says the missing paintings represent the artist at his peak.
“Now the illustrations were powerful as well, they took people into the story but the paintings themselves, they're so much more powerful and it really would be a shame if they’re never recovered.”
The FBI says art theft is a substantial criminal enterprise with estimated losses in the billions of dollars annually.
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.