By Philip Boroff and Katya Kazakina
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- A guy walks into a bar with a $1.4 million Corot. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s 1857-58 “Portrait of a Girl” is missing, according to a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. And the last man with possession can’t recall where it is after a night of heavy drinking, the suit says.
The complaint, filed on Aug. 30, details a Manhattan misadventure redolent of a situation comedy: Kristyn Trudgeon and Tom Doyle co-owned the Corot and enlisted James Carl Haggerty -- her acquaintance, his friend -- as an agent to help sell it. Haggerty was to be paid $25,000 upon the sale. The suit doesn’t disclose what Trudgeon or Doyle originally paid for the picture, or where they work.
On July 28, according to the complaint, Doyle learned that a London dealer, Offer Waterman, was interested in buying the piece, valued at $1.35 million. Doyle retrieved from storage the
12 ¾-inch by 9 ½-inch portrait, depicting a young woman with a steady gaze, wide forehead and white lace collar. That afternoon he, Waterman and Haggerty met at Doyle’s office in the Empire State Building.
After inspecting the painting, Waterman, the dealer, asked to examine it further with ultraviolet black light, often used for authentication, the suit said. That evening Doyle carried the painting to the midtown bistro Rue 57, where he met Haggerty.
Doyle told Haggerty to deliver the artwork to Waterman at the Upper East Side Mark Hotel.

Hotel Bar

From here, the suit says, we rely on security cameras and an investigation by the owners: At 11 p.m., Haggerty leaves the painting at the front desk and enters a hotel bar, followed by Waterman. At 11:30, the two exit the bar and retrieve the painting and put it on a bench. They talk. Waterman leaves. At 11:34, Haggerty returns the painting to the front desk and re- enters the bar.
At 12:50 a.m., Haggerty exits the bar and collects the painting from the front desk. He “tumbles out the front door, colliding with the doorman as he is exiting the hotel,” the suit says.
At 2:30 a.m., a security camera at Haggerty’s apartment building shows him arriving -- without the Corot.
“The next morning, Haggerty informed Doyle that he did not have the painting, and could not recall its whereabouts citing that he had too much to drink the previous evening,” the suit says.
A statement e-mailed from Waterman’s lawyer confirmed that Haggerty showed him the painting at the Mark Hotel.
“Mr. Waterman had no further interest in pursuing this painting after the viewing,” he said.

No One Home

Haggerty, the suit’s defendant, could not be reached for comment. A concierge at the address for Haggerty on the suit told a reporter that no one in the apartment was home. Trudgeon, who filed the suit, had no comment, said her lawyer, Max DiFabio.
“Haggerty’s explanation is unacceptable,” DiFabio said in an interview.
A Corot with the same title was at Los Angeles-based Hammer Museum until 2007, according to Sarah Stifler, a museum spokeswoman.
“I can confirm we had Corot’s painting ‘Portrait of a Girl’,” Stifler said. “But I can’t confirm it’s the same painting” as the one that disappeared in New York, she said.
In 2007, the museum returned a group of paintings to the Armand Hammer Foundation as part of a settlement separating the museum from the foundation. Corot’s painting was among them, Stifler said, adding that she didn’t know what happened to the work since then.
The case is Trudgeon v. Haggerty, 111583/2010, Supreme Court of the State of New York.

The things one finds on a bloomberg machine....This story is priceless. Though it cost Haggerty 1.4 million.