Harvard Reclaims Paintings Missing For 30-Plus Years

By GARY SHAPIRO, Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 20, 2006

Harvard University has announced that it is in the process of retrieving two paintings — one by a noted Boston-born artist from Colonial times, John Singleton Copley — that disappeared from its collection more than 30 years ago.

An oil on canvas signed "Copley RA" dated 1790 and an oil on panel of a Harvard president, reported missing in 1968 and 1971, were items at auction last weekend at the William M.V. Kingsland Estate sale at Stair Galleries in Hudson, N.Y.

Stair Galleries directed The New York Sun to the FBI and Harvard, which did not return calls by press time.

In an article yesterday in the Harvard Crimson, a Harvard University Art Museums spokesman, Daron Manoogian, said Harvard was "working with law enforcement authorities and the other parties involved to coordinate" the safe return of the paintings.

The university has identified the Copley painting as having come from the bequest of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, who graduated Harvard in 1886 and earned a law degree at the college in 1889. He died in 1943. Winthrop originally held his collection in Murray Hill but moved it to 15 E. 81st St., not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where, according to a 2003 article in Harvard Magazine, he "put the Winthrop crest above the door, for he was proud of his ancestry." His ancestor was John Winthrop, Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor.

When Kingsland died intestate in March, Stair Galleries bought materials from the city of New York, which is consignor of the items. Kingsland materials at the auction included about 250 paintings and decorative objects.

While Stair Galleries did buy some of Kingsland's art collection, Christie's bought the most valuable artwork from the estate, according to a person familiar with the sale.

William Kingsland was a preservationist who served as a public member for the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 8.A member of the board, Barry Schneider called him "a walking gazetteer" who knew New York architectural and social history, particularly that of the Upper East Side.

He did invaluable volunteer work for the New York Marble Cemetery, for which he researched genealogical connections between cemetery vault purchasers and their living descendants.

William M.V. Kingsland's name was changed from Melvyn Kohn in March of 1960, it was reported in a New York Times article in July. Kingsland told friends that he had attended classes at the University of Vermont and Harvard. The University of Vermont records that he was registered there in 1964.

Copley was born in Boston and left America to live in England in 1774.

The Copley painting at the Stair Galleries is identical to his portrait of William Ponsonby, who was the second earl of Bessborough, an anonymous art professional in the Crimson article related.

Correction from October 24, 2006:

The office of the New York County public administrator consigned items from the William M.V. Kingsland estate to Stair Galleries and Christie's. The consignor was misattributed in an article on page 2 of the October 20–22 Sun.

Harvard Reclaims Paintings Missing For 30-Plus Years

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