{"id":311266,"date":"2025-11-28T00:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T00:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311266\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T00:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T00:07:10","slug":"con-artist-accused-of-painting-fraud-worth-500000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311266\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Con artist\u2019 accused of painting fraud worth \u00a3500,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201cquintessential con artist\u201d has allegedly defrauded a London gallery owner of a 19th-century French painting worth almost \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

Thomas Doyle was described as a \u201cWalter Mitty\u201d character by Patrick Matthiesen, who had entrusted Doyle with Gustave Courbet\u2019s Mother and Child on a Hammock.<\/p>\n

Doyle, who is American, was charged with wire fraud this month in New York in relation to the alleged attempt to defraud Matthiesen. <\/p>\n

Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, said that Doyle had told the artwork\u2019s owner \u201ca series of brazen lies \u2026 so he could keep the profits from the sale of the painting for himself\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2007 Doyle admitted to stealing a Edgar Degas<\/a> sculpture from an art collector. In 2011 he was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of an $880,000 fraud in relation to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot\u2019s painting Portrait of a Girl.<\/p>\n

Preet Bharara, then the New York US attorney, had called him a \u201cquintessential con artist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Upon his release, however, Doyle, who is also known as AJ or Austin Doyle, allegedly conjured up a scheme to defraud Matthiesen, who founded his eponymous gallery in St James\u2019s in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot\u2019s Portrait of a Young Girl, which Doyle was convicted of an $880,000 fraud in relation to<\/p>\n

Matthiesen told the Art Newspaper that Doyle had \u201cappeared out of the woodwork\u201d in 2023 when he was trying to sell the Courbet artwork. He had bought it in 2015.<\/p>\n

Doyle claimed to have been a \u201ctop gun\u201d in the US air force who, with the help of prominent family members in the art world, had \u201cdabbled\u201d in collecting.<\/p>\n

Matthiesen said that Doyle had shown him various artworks, including two El Grecos, adding: \u201cI believed in the man because he produced real things.\u201d<\/p>\n

He subsequently granted permission for Doyle \u2014 whom he had never met in person \u2014 to try to sell his Courbet after he had claimed there was a buyer willing to pay $550,000 (\u00a3415,000). A \u201crepresentative\u201d for Doyle then picked up Matthiesen\u2019s painting from storage.<\/p>\n

According to court filings, Doyle\u2019s associate then sold the Courbet to the Jill Newhouse Gallery in New York for $115,000, providing \u201cfalse provenance\u201d. The gallery then sold it to a collector for $125,000. <\/p>\n

This collector, according to the Art Newspaper, was Bruce Springsteen\u2019s<\/a> business manager, Jon Landau. <\/p>\n

The indictment says that Doyle did not return any proceeds from the sale and spent the money on \u201cpersonal expenses and his own debts\u201d.<\/p>\n

In March this year Doyle allegedly emailed Matthiesen to say he had been \u201cbetrayed\u201d and \u201clied\u201d to by an associate.<\/p>\n

Matthiesen has also filed a lawsuit in New York against Doyle, Landau and the Jill Newhouse Gallery. <\/p>\n

He claims Newhouse should have known that the painting had been valued at $650,000 (\u00a3490,000) previously, as should Landau. <\/p>\n

Matthiesen\u2019s lawyer, Steven Schindler, said they should have known the deal was \u201ctoo good to be true\u201d.<\/p>\n

Landau\u2019s lawyer said that \u201cbased on applicable law, Jon Landau is the rightful owner of that painting\u201d. Newhouse\u2019s legal team told the Art Newspaper they would not comment while the case was ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201cquintessential con artist\u201d has allegedly defrauded a London gallery owner of a 19th-century French painting worth almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-311266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}