Yeah right, blame the booze!

[faceless]

New York art courier loses $1.3 million painting on night out
A New York art courier entrusted with helping to sell a $1.3 million (£850,000) painting is being sued after it vanished while he was on a night out
Nick Allen,
1 Sep 2010

A New York art dealer entrusted with helping to sell a $1.3 million (£850,000) painting said is being sued after it vanished while he was on a drunken night. James Carl Haggerty is now being sued by one of the owners of “Portrait of a Girl” by the French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

According to the legal claim Mr Haggerty said he went to the Mark Hotel in Manhattan with the painting so it could be examined by a potential buyer from London. He then went to the hotel bar and was recorded on security cameras leaving with the painting after midnight. Two hours later cameras at his apartment building showed him without the portrait. According to the case filed in court in Manhattan, Mr Haggerty said the following morning that he “could not recall its whereabouts, citing that he had had too much to drink the previous evening.”

Owner Kristyn Trudgeon is suing for the value of the painting, which was completed in about 1857 and spent years at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She told the New York Daily News: “I think he’s a complete fumbling idiot.” Her lawyer, Max Di Fabio, said she was “was terribly hurt and dismayed and disappointed” and “would like some answers.” Mr Haggerty, who also works for a private jet company, had been called in to help sell the painting by a friend who owned a small share in it.

Corot, who lived from 1796 to 1875, was an important figure among the proto-Impressionist group known as the Barbizon School. Members turned their backs on Parisian urbanity and painted scenes of rural French life, often completing their work outdoors.

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