Missing Owner of Auction Gallery Sought in Theft of $400,000 in Artworks

An arrest warrant was issued Friday for a Westside auction house owner who disappeared in March and allegedly absconded with more than 1,000 artworks, antiques and decorative objects belonging to his clients.

Police said many more items may be missing from the defunct Richard Eszterhazy Galleries at 926 N. La Cienega Blvd., making this the largest local art theft in memory in terms of volume.

“I can’t remember any other case we’ve had that was this large,” said Detective William Martin, who has investigated art thefts since 1978.

Valued at $400,000

Despite its quantity, the missing artwork, including lithographs and etchings by Paul Klee, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall, is valued only at $400,000, Martin said. The most valuable single piece is a Degas bronze sculpture of a horse worth $50,000.

Los Angeles police have notified Interpol and Scotland Yard that Eszterhazy, 35, is wanted on grand theft charges. A British subject, Eszterhazy opened his auction house in 1986 and was living near Hancock Park, Martin said.

At this point, authorities have received crime reports from four people, but “we feel there are a lot more out there who haven’t gone to the police,” Martin said.

Three of the victims are in the art business, according to Martin, who declined to name them. He said one--the owner of a Beverly Hills art and antiques gallery--lost 1,000 drawings, paintings, statues and other items that Eszterhazy was holding on consignment.

Robert Borlenghi, a real estate developer, said that he gave Eszterhazy about $50,000 worth of furniture, Italian paintings and chandeliers in 1987 from a home he sold in Beverly Hills. A few items were sold before Eszterhazy disappeared.

“There were some Chinese pieces I was specifically insured for,” Borlenghi said in a phone interview. “The rest of the stuff, I don’t know.”

Mario Piatelli, a trustee of the Southern California Auctioneers Assn., said he knew of three other alleged victims, including a gallery owner with a claimed $27,000 loss who has since moved to Scotland and a Pacific Palisades man who consigned two drawings worth $6,700 to the auction house. The Pacific Palisades man declined to discuss the case and asked that his name not be published.

Piatelli said one victim decided not to cooperate with police after Eszterhazy contacted him several times, claiming he was calling from Jakarta, Indonesia. This man “is hopeful (Eszterhazy) may make restitution,” Piatelli said.

Ben Horowitz, owner of Heritage House, a gallery on La Cienega, said that while Eszterhazy carried “a mixture of everything, including good and bad,” he, like many small auction house owners, did not guarantee the works’ authenticity.

“A gallery owner who knows what he’s doing would not put anything in an auction house” where some of the works might be “questionable,” Horowitz said.

“It had a real low-end kind of terrible stuff, or else things were damaged or in bad condition,” said Jackie Silverman, an art appraiser who is married to another gallery owner on La Cienega. “Don’t confuse it with someplace as glamorous as Sotheby’s or Christie’s.”

But Bob Abell, president of Abell Auction House near downtown Los Angeles, said all auction houses, even the most prestigious, carry inexpensive items as well as the pricey artworks that capture public attention.

Abell said Eszterhazy opened his business in partnership with Arthur Good, a “very reputable” dealer with whom he eventually parted company. Borlenghi said it was because of Good’s reputation that he was willing to do business with Eszterhazy.

Good did not return a reporter’s telephone call.

Jerome M. Eisenberg, owner of Royal-Athena Galleries in Beverly Hills, which specializes in ancient art, said he had attended one of Eszterhazy’s widely advertised auctions during which a large bronze sculpture of the Roman period was up for sale.

Allegedly a Copy

“After I did some research,” he said, “I discovered that it was a 19th- or 20th-Century copy of a piece in the Naples Museum.” Eisenberg said he was not surprised to learn that Eszterhazy was out of business. “He just didn’t have a good reputation.”

According to Abell, it is up to the auction house to insure the works. “When somebody brings something in to us . . . it immediately becomes our responsibility,” Abell said.

Both Abell and Piatelli worried about the effect the Eszterhazy case might have on the auction business. “It hurts the entire industry,” Piatelli said.

Martin said that until now, the largest art theft took place in 1981 when 248 pieces of art and jewelry were taken from the Bel-Air home of Taiwan businessman Weng-Ping (Wellington) Cheng.

Some of the stolen goods were recovered in the ocean near Redondo Beach, and Cheng eventually received $3.7 million from his insurers.

Times staff writer Davan Maharaj contributed to this article.