It’s Uninsured : Fire Destroys Valuable Art Work at Gallery

Flames from a fire in an elevator shaft at the Huntington Art Gallery in San Marino burst through ground-floor hallway doors early Thursday, destroying a valuable 18th-Century painting and scorching nearby furnishings.

The director of the gallery, Robert Middlekauff, said the painting--a Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of Mrs. Edwin Lascelles, done in about 1777--was not insured.

“The cost of insurance premiums for such artworks is prohibitive,” he explained.

The cause of the blaze, which was detected by an automatic alarm system at 12:09 a.m., was not immediately determined. Firefighters from San Marino, San Gabriel and South Pasadena reportedly responded to the alarm within 10 minutes, and damage was confined to the interior of the gallery’s main hall.

Expert Assesses Damage

A spokeswoman for the gallery, Katherine Wilson, said an expert was called in to see whether at least part of the charred painting could be salvaged.

“An art expert has had an opportunity to look at the painting and evaluate it,” she said, “and the painting, in the opinion of the expert, is destroyed.”

No immediate value was placed on the Reynolds painting, which was purchased by millionaire railroad executive Henry E. Huntington in 1913 as part of a collection of 17th- and 18th-Century British art that includes such world-famous works as Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy” and Lawrence’s “Pinkie.”

However, an expert in the field who asked not to be identified said the Reynolds painting could be worth “several hundred thousand dollars.”

The cost of repairing fire and smoke damage to the furnishings, walls, floors and ceiling near the entrance to the palatial gallery--built as Huntington’s home, with construction completed in 1911--was not immediately estimated.

The gallery will remain closed until further notice.

Officials at the 207-acre estate said the fire apparently had started at the base of the elevator shaft and smoldered there for some time before flames burned through the doors and charred the painting, which hung on a wall directly opposite the elevator.

Middlekauff said no one was in the gallery at the time, but a sophisticated alarm system immediately signaled the Huntington’s private security force, which, in turn, telephoned San Marino police and firefighters. San Gabriel and South Pasadena responded under a mutual aid agreement.

The gallery director said the quick response limited the damage. He said San Marino firefighters frequently train on the estate grounds and maintain up-to-date plans of all the buildings, which, besides the Huntington Art Gallery, include the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery for American Art and the Huntington Library, housing more than 600,000 books, among them a Gutenberg Bible.