‘Rascal’ steals $12,500 painting from Halifax art gallery in seconds

The owner of a Halifax art gallery is calling the theft of a $12,500 painting  a “crime of opportunity.”

“The rascal came in. Saw this painting at 12:05 p.m. and just just nabbed it and walked out — literally 10 seconds,” said Ian Muncaster, co-owner of Zwicker’s Art Gallery on Doyle Street, near downtown Halifax.

On Sept. 29, staff realized that an oil painting by French Canadian artist Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté was missing from its spot on the wall, near the front door.

After looking at surveillance camera video from across the street, they realized the painting had been stolen about an hour earlier.

“It picked up an image of this guy walking down Brunswick Street and just about to cross Doyle when he sort of, I guess, turned right and decided to walk down the street,” Muncaster explained.

“When he came to our building, he looked in the window, looked at a couple of paintings, I guess, and put his hoodie up and went down to the door, looked through the door, cupped his hand, rolled his eyes, looked through and came in.”

The whole process took mere seconds, Muncaster estimated.

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Muncaster says in the 50 years he’s co-owned the gallery, thefts have happened “several times.” He’s never had a painting returned. Once, several years ago, a Dutch painting resurfaced when it was brought to another gallery for appraisal, but by then the loss had already been covered by insurance.

“In most cases, I think the people involved are petty criminals, I don’t think they’re, you know, sophisticated art thieves or anything like that. But the theft of art, of course, is huge internationally,” he said.

In this case, the Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté painting, which dates to the late 1800s to early 1900s, was valued at $12,500, and had a tag with the price displayed beside it. The small 8” X 10” painting is framed in a gold gilded frame

“He was a very well known painter,” said Muncaster.

“He trained in Europe and this was a scene of a farm in Brittany.”

Halifax Regional Police have released a photo of the suspect, described as a man with dark hair and a receding hairline. He was wearing a blue track suit, black and white sneakers and a black face mask.

Anyone with information about the incident or video from the area is asked to call 902-490-5020 or Crime Stoppers.