Stolen Sculpture Coincidentally Returns to Gallery

SANTA MONICA—A sculpture that was stolen three years ago from a public storage facility has ended up back at its original gallery, reports the L.A. Times. Ship of Oblivion, a 162-pound olive-wood piece by Peruvian artist Margarita Checa, was returned last week to the Bill Lowe Gallery in Santa Monica by a couple, David John Huggon and Fiona Grant, after going missing in 2005.

The sculpture of a boat with four people, valued at $95,000, was placed in storage after a 2004 exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. The theft was noticed and reported in September 2005, when an inventory was taken at the facility. Huggon reports buying it for $750 from a man at the storage facility who said he had decided to get rid of it. He brought it home, placed it in the spare bedroom, and used it as a clothesrack until the couple recently decided to remodel.

Huggon and Grant brought it to Bonhams & Butterfields to be appraised, where a bystander noticed it and mentioned that it resembled the work of an artist that the dealer Bill Lowe represents, suggesting the couple bring it to him.

The gallery's insurance company now owns the sculpture, after paying the gallery's claim in 2005, and is in the process of negotiating the terms of repurchase by the gallery. The company will also pay Huggon and Grant $750. Lt. Alex Padilla of the Santa Monica police department said the case remains open.