Corot Conman Gets His Comeuppance

A career swindler, Thomas Doyle of Manhattan, was sentenced to six years in prison for his latest art crime, a convoluted fraud scheme involving a work by French painter, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. 

While Corot was a prominent member of the Barbizon school and known for his landscapes, the painting in question is his small oil “Portrait of a Girl.”  Doyle purchased the work for $775,000, but convinced an investor that its price was $1.1 million and that it would be worth twice that amount on the market. He is now ordered to repay the investor $880,000, the amount he paid for his 80% share.

Doyle’s sentencing is the final chapter in a complex shenanigan that resulted in the artwork going missing for a period of time before eventually being found in a bush on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Doyle, 54, is no stranger to criminal convictions, having racked up 11 priors over the years. This accounts for Judge Colleen McMahon’s decision to dispense with federal sentencing guidelines and hand down a tougher sentence.

Amongst Doyle’s previous crimes was the theft of a bronze statue sculpted by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas, which he stole while posing as a member of a prominent art dealing family.

Corot’s “Portrait of a Girl” is valued somewhere from $500,000 to $600,000, and is currently in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

(Report: Christine Bolli for ARTFIXdaily)