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OLD SAYBROOK -- It
was just a little
painting, some flowers
in a vase, Dina Blais
said wistfully.
And it came into
her life, she says,
almost by accident, one
of the many items for
sale one day last year
by Charles McDougal, a
man from whom she and
other local antiques
dealers had bought items
before. Though nothing
McDougal had that day
particularly appealed to
her, Blais figured she
should buy something.
She paid $100 for the
painting and set it
aside.
Small as the
painting was, it would
briefly make Blais a
near-millionaire and a
player in a
transatlantic art-world
caper. The "little
painting" turned out to
be a 1877 original by
Henri Fantin-Latour
called "Bouquet d'Hiver"
- stolen, police say,
from a Waterford man's
home.
Unaware the
painting was stolen,
Blais, 62, hadn't
planned to do much with
it - that is, until a
customer suggested it
might be valuable and
should be appraised.
When an auctioneer
placed its value at
$150,000, Blais was
shocked - and began to
worry she had cheated
McDougal. She was still
contemplating how she
could compensate him
when the painting went
up for auction in May,
and a bidding war pushed
its sale price to an
amount Blais could only
have dreamed of:
$1.027 million.
Once the fees were
paid, Blais took in
about $700,000
- a fortune for
a Dutch immigrant who
once lived in the cellar
of her store. She and
her pharmacist husband
spent $13,000 on a Ford
Focus her husband could
drive to work at the
University of
Connecticut Health
Center in Farmington and
paid McDougal for work
he did on her shop. Then
they invested for their
retirement.
But any thoughts of
the windfall securing
their future vanished
when Waterford police
entered Blais' store and
asked about the
million-dollar painting.
The little painting
now sits in a secure
evidence room in the
Waterford police
station, and McDougal is
facing a first-degree
larceny charge.
"It's just a very
awful thing," Blais
said.
Internet Sleuth
Det. John Davis
considers armed
robberies and sexual
assaults the "bread and
butter" of the Waterford
Police Department. So he
was surprised the day he
got to the office and
was handed the case of a
resident who claimed a
painting worth $700,000
had been taken from his
home.
It was a year
after Blais had
purchased the painting.
The man, whom police
would not identify, had
been out of the country
on an extended trip, and
only returned Sept. 1.
The painting had been in
his family for
generations, Davis said.
Davis started his
investigation with an
Internet search. Using
the artist's name, he
found one painting that
matched the low-quality
photograph the
painting's owner had
given him. The image
linked to an antiques
digest, and to an
article detailing the
painting's sale for
$1.027 million by
Shannon's Fine Art
Auctioneers in Milford.
It seemed so
far-fetched, even Davis'
boss didn't believe him
until he produced the
article.
A visit to the
auction house revealed
that the painting had
been put up for auction
with a suggested price
of $150,000 to $250,000.
The bidding started at
$70,000, but a
competition quickly
escalated the price to
more than $1 million.
The winning bidder owned
a gallery in the
Maastricht, the
Netherlands, and had
already taken possession
of his prize by the time
Davis got on the trail.
The auction house
had contracted with
French experts to
authenticate the
painting and checked
whether it had been
reported stolen. Because
the painting had not yet
been reported missing,
it did not send up any
red flags, Davis said.
Davis enlisted help
from the FBI and the
U.S. Department of
Justice. That, in turn,
led him to the Art Loss
Register, a Manhattan
company that maintains a
database of stolen art
and artifacts. For a
Connecticut detective
more accustomed to
street crimes than
stolen art, it made all
the difference.
"They know all the
players in the art
world," Davis said.
The Art Loss
Register helped arrange
a trip to the
Netherlands for
Waterford police to
retrieve the painting,
put police in touch with
a Maastricht detective,
helped smooth the
transaction with the
gallery owner, and
arranged for an
art-handling company to
package the painting for
its flight home with
Davis and navigate
customs.
The painting
arrived in the United
States late last month.
It is now in the
evidence room, though it
could be returned to the
owner if the state's
attorney and McDougal's
lawyer agree to allow
the court to use a
photographed
representation instead.
Brief Fortune
Following the
trail backward from
Shannon's, police
interviewed Blais, who
pointed them to
McDougal. McDougal told
police he had taken the
painting from a shed on
property where he had
been hired to do work,
Davis said.
The property owner
told police McDougal had
asked him for money in
the past, Davis said.
And the property owner
told police the painting
had been inside the
house - not in a shed.
"If the victim is
going to value a
painting at $700,000,
you're going to
hopefully keep it inside
his house," Davis said.
"The fact that Mr.
McDougal said he took it
from the shed - we don't
believe or disbelieve
him, but oftentimes
people will come in and
they'll try to minimize
things."
McDougal's
attorney, John Newson,
said he could not
discuss specifics of the
case, but described
McDougal as "a guy of
good character."
"The circumstances
Mr. McDougal finds
himself in are about as
far away from his
general character and
integrity as you can
get," he said.
Blais, too, feels
sorry for McDougal. He
did handyman work on her
store and even had keys
to the place, she said.
He serves as a volunteer
firefighter and EMT, she
noted, and said she
feels for his wife and
son.
Blais' eyes well
with tears when she
describes the fortune
she briefly had, and the
cost of giving it back.
Though they had not
spent the bulk of it,
there are costs
associated with taking
money out of an IRA. She
is now suing McDougal
for damages.
After 21 years
selling antiques from
her Middlesex Turnpike
shop, Van's Elegant
Antiques, Blais worries
about the way her
connection with the case
will make people
perceive her.
"I'm not going to
be ripping people off,"
she said.
She never imagined
the painting was worth
so much, she said. At
one point, before she
realized it was
valuable, she spotted a
white blob on the vase,
and figured someone had
accidentally splattered
paint on it. She very
nearly took a razor to
the artwork to scrape it
off.
Blais said her
specialty is dolls, and
she doesn't plan on
taking in any more
paintings.
"It's taken the fun
out of it," she said.
Contact Arielle
Levin Becker at
alevin-becker@courant.com.
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