6 hours Ago
Sir Alfred Munning's portrait of Belle Baruch astride Souriant III. Photo by Tom Poland For thirteen years I jogged a trail running within 60 feet of stolen art hidden in the home of acquaintance Roger Streeter. I had no clue the art was there but the place always gave me a creepy feeling.
Streeter’s death set events into motion that would solve, in part, the largest art heist in South Carolina history. I, however, knew nothing of the heist. In 2003 Dad was dying of cancer.
My family and I had no time for anything except doctors and sitting in a hospital. I missed Adam Parker’s lede in the Charleston Post & Courier. “The famous horse paintings by Alfred Munnings went galloping off in the middle of the night in late July 2003, along with several important folio prints by John James Audubon and works by artist Louis Aston Knight.
The Belle W. Baruch Foundation quickly initiated an investigation into the crime at its Hobcaw Barony. It was thought at the time that the stolen artwork was worth in excess of $2 million.
” Shortly after Streeter died in April 2016, an anonymous emailer contacted me. “Look into the stolen art.” I did because I knew Streeter.
Escapades lay ahead, including a foray into art collecting. An Audubon print of a male turkey in Streeter’s house suffered irreparable damage, a $45,000 to $85,000 loss. Audubon’s prints secured his reputation as an artist-naturalist and sent him to fame.
His ruined print sent me to a gala event when I learned an Audubon male turkey print would be auctioned off. I attended the pre-auction reception. Wearing a blue-and-white seersucker suit, white bucks, crisp white shirt, and pink-blue-white Brooks Brothers bow tie, I mingled with the glitzy folks.
The place teemed with a menagerie of people. It felt like a movie set, like being in a movie scene. I studied Audubon’s male wild turkey print but the real show was not the items for bid.
It was the bidders. As Southerners say, “they put on the dog.” Wearing a blonde toupee, a man in a sport jacket with a toy poodle on a leash sashayed among paintings, music boxes, and gemstone-mounted tea caddies.
He’d turn up his nose one minute and emit an ooh ah the next. Some items wounded him; others brought him great joy. Not to be outdone, another fellow with flaming red hair wore a bright blue jacket, white linen slacks, and glasses like Roy Orbison.
He flashed a silver ring crowned by a massive slab of Navaho turquoise. It looked like a king blue crab and it rendered his right hand useless except for fighting. Had the man with hair afire and fellow with the toy poodle engaged in fisticuffs, I’d have put my money on the redhead.
He wore what amounted to a brass knuckle, and a backhand would deliver a knockout punch. Poland Not to be outdone, a buxom woman had piled her jet-black hair high like the B-52 singers. She wore a leopard skin stole, black velvet slacks, diamond-crusted high heel sandals, a plunging fuchsia blouse, and large diamond pendant.
She held a gold wire-rim lorgnette as she leaned over to examine a case of jewelry. Her diamond rings and diamond tennis bracelet sent a sparkly message: “I’m from Bling City.” It really did seem like a movie set where Mr.
Showmanship himself, the fabulous Liberace, might glide into the room in a plush gold-and-white cape, sit at a crystal piano, and play “Strangers In The Night.” It was a colorful, memorable evening. — If the auctioneer had worn a white suit and sported a goatee and Western style black bow tie, he’d have been a dead ringer for Colonel Harland Sanders.
The highlight of the evening? A bidding war for an oil portrait of a young French woman, Jeune femme denudée sur canape (Young woman naked on a settee). The price skyrocketed and every floor bidder dropped out. Two phone bidders went at it like two boxers delivering body blows.
When the price reached $275,000 one bidder acquiesced. Applause erupted. This stolen art saga would lead me into other adventures, including a camellia tea in Edgefield, a spooky grave, sitting in a chair Willie Morris graced, threatening phone calls, a confession, pottery wars, and more.
Stay tuned. Truth really is stranger than fiction. About Tom Poland Tom Poland is the author of fourteen books and more than 2,000 magazine features and columns.
Tom writes about the South, its people, culture, land, natural wealth, and beautiful detritus—ruins and abandoned places. He travels back roads looking for forgotten places, captivating people, and vestiges of bygone times. Much of that work finds its way into books, columns, essays, and features.
Tom grew up in Lincoln County, Georgia and graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism. He began my career as a scriptwriter, moved into magazine work, then wandered into the book world. His work has appeared in magazines throughout the South.
Among his recent books are Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia, Georgialina, A Southland, As We Knew It, and Reflections of South Carolina, Vol. II. In April 2018 the History Press published his book, South Carolina Country Roads.
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