Theft from Christchurch Picture Gallery, Oxford

“Three high-value paintings have been stolen in a burglary at Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford, police said. Thames Valley police said burglars had broken into the gallery on St Aldates, which is part of Oxford University’s Christ Church college, at around 11pm on Saturday. Nobody was injured during the heist, police confirmed. They took Salvator Rosa’s A Rocky Coast, With Soldiers Studying a Plan, from the late 1640s, Anthony Van Dyck’s A Soldier on Horseback, circa 1616, and Annibale Carracci’s A Boy Drinking, circa 1580.” (The Guardian)

Police have made one suggestion that the thieves used a boat to escape. It seems very strange to me that no press reports mention an alarm system. How did they get away undetected with works from a collection worth tens of millions?

At least they didn’t take Carracci’s ‘The Butcher’s Shop’ (c.1583), which is a wonderful example of an Italian genre picture. The picture was recorded in the Gonzaga collection in Mantua in 1627, then King Charles I bought it for £30. Sold after the death of the King in 1651, Sir John Guise bequested it to Christ Church in 1765. In the 1950s it could be found hanging in the kitchens at Christ Church! Now it dominates a wall in the Picture Gallery.