FBI posts stolen Parrish images

Angling for a break in a 3 1/2 -year-old West Hollywood art theft that stumped authorities, the FBI has posted images on its new Top Ten Art Crimes website of two Maxfield Parrish canvases that were cut from their frames and swiped in an overnight, through-the-roof break-in.

At the time, in July 2002, investigators and art experts wondered why thieves would steal just two canvases in a series of six linked panels that a Texas oilman and his Colorado-based co-owner had placed for sale at Edenhurst Gallery. The paintings, roughly 5 feet by 6 feet and showing young men and women in Renaissance garb strolling near a sculpture of an urn, are valued at up to $2 million each.

The Top Ten list includes stolen Iraqi treasures, a Van Gogh and Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” The Parrish canvases, executed in 1914 for a series that hung in Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s 5th Avenue Manhattan mansion, can be seen -- and tips concerning their whereabouts can be offered -- at www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm.

*

-- Mike Boehm