Co-owner of Corot 'drunkenly lost' painting identified as being recognised art thief

Update: Earlier we reported that a courier was being sued for losing a painting on a drunken night out, but now, as Associated Press reports, the case has been dropped and the plot thickens. The painting, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's Portrait of a Girl (1857) was, it appears, owned by more than one person, and owner Kristyn Trudgeon, who was bringing the case against the courier James Carl Haggerty, has now dropped the case. This is because the painting's co-owner, Thomas Doyle, has been identified as a recognised art thief. Doyle pleaded guilty in 2007 to the theft of an Edgar Degas sculpture from a wealthy collector, and spent two and a half years in jail. Attempts have been made to contact Doyle, though he is not responding, and Haggerty is also nowhere to be found.

Previous report: An art courier who was transporting a Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot painting, valued at $1.3 million, is facing a lawsuit after it appears that he lost it on a night out, reports the Telegraph. The man in question is James Carl Haggerty and is being sued by the owner of Portrait of a Girl (1857), Kristyn Trudgeon, who had this to say: "I think he's a complete fumbling idiot". Haggerty took the painting to a Manhattan hotel so it could be examined by a potential buyer, but then stopped in at the hotel bar for a few drinks. He's a bit hazy on what happened next, but was caught on CCTV leaving merrily late in the night without the painting.