Two 19th century paintings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars have been returned to their rightful owners thanks to a man on Long Island who did a little investigative work.
While scoping out some bronze sculptures being sold from a collector’s estate, Brandon Levine’s eye was drawn to one painting in particular.
“It was a lovely gem scene of a woman holding a doll, and I immediately recognized it as being an Eastman Johnson. I saw the initials EJ, and I thought, oh wow, I believe this is an Eastman Johnson,” Levine told NBC New York.
Levine saw an additional painting with the signature from Johnson, an American painter from the mid-1800s. The art and antiques dealer told the organizers he was interested, but needed to do some research.
Levine compared photos of the paintings to a public catalog of the Johnson’s works, and spotted one of the paintings.
“The first thing I saw was whereabouts unknown, stolen,” he said. “I went, oh my God, turned around, showed my wife.”
While it was an exciting find, Levine knew he wouldn’t be able to buy the paintings, because they had been stolen. “The Young Mother” had been stolen from the Hirschl and Adler Gallery in New York City in 1978, and “Mary and Her Lamb” was stolen from the Kenneth Lux Gallery in the same year.
Levine called Shannon’s Fine Art Auctioneers in Connecticut for help. The owner of the auction house, Sandra Germain, found the original owners of the paintings and reunited them with the stolen artwork, which are estimated to be valued at around $200,000.
“To be able to call them and say I found these paintings after 48 years was a pretty exciting day for all of us,” said Germain.
“It’s really remarkable. I give kudos to Sandra Germain for actually doing the due diligence,” said Eric Baumgartner, the senior vice president for the Herschl and Adler Gallery.
Meanwhile, Levine can now add the title of investigator after solving a decades-old art caping mystery.
“I wanted to do the right thing and get it back to the rightful owners,” he said.