Adam Worth, Alias "Little Adam." : Theft and Recovery of Gainsborough's "Duchess of Devonshire."
1904

From the Archives of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency.

The Greatest Criminal of the Past Century.  Stole Millions--Imprisoned But Once.
Adam Worth (c. 1844 - 8 January 1902) was a crime boss and fraudster. His career in crime, stretching from the United States to Europe and southern Africa, included the infamous theft of Gainsborough's celebrated Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, which he retained for 25 years. In London, he lived as a respected member of high society under the alias Henry Judson Raymond. Scotland Yard Detective Robert Anderson nicknamed him "the Napoleon of the criminal world" based on his short stature. He is widely considered the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional criminal mastermind James Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes series.
...
In 1876, Worth personally stole Thomas Gainsborough's recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire from a London gallery of Thomas Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He liked the painting and did not try to sell it. The two men who assisted in the robbery, Junka Phillips and Little Joe, grew impatient. Phillips tried to get him to talk about the theft in the presence of a police informer, and Worth effectively fired him. Worth gave Little Joe money to return to the United States, where he tried to rob the Union Trust Company, was arrested, and talked to the Pinkertons. They alerted Scotland Yard, but they still could not prove anything.

Worth kept the painting with him even when he was traveling and organizing new schemes and robberies. Eventually, he traveled to South Africa, where he stole $500,000 worth of uncut diamonds. Back in London, he founded Wynert & Company, which sold diamonds at a lower price than its competitors.

In the 1880s, Worth married a Louise Margaret Boljahn, while still using the name Henry Raymond. They had a son Henry and a daughter Beatrice. It is possible his wife did not know his real identity. He smuggled the painting to the United States and left it there.
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In early 1901, through the American detective agency Pinkerton's, he negotiated a return of the painting to Agnew's son for $25,000. The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago in March 1901, and a couple of months later the painting arrived in London and was put up for sale. The Wall Street financier J. P. Morgan immediately travelled to England to obtain the painting and later claimed to have paid $150,000 for it.

--Wikipedia
Illustrated with black & white photographs and prints.


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