オスカー・ワイルドの「友情の指輪」、著名美術調査員が発見　盗難から２０年

【アムステルダムＡＦＰ＝時事】アイルランド出身の作家オスカー・ワイルドが友人に贈り、その後盗まれていた金の指輪が、20年近くの時を経て、「美術界のインディ・ジョーンズ」の異名をとるオランダの美術調査員によって発見された。（写真はアイルランド出身の作家オスカー・ワイルドが学友に贈った18金の指輪。オランダ・アムステルダムにて）
　１８７６年、ワイルドは学友のレジナルド・ハーディングさんと共同で、学友のウィリアム・ウォードさんに友情の指輪を贈った。ベルトとバックルを模したデザインの１８金の指輪には、「愛を望む人へ、愛の贈り物」というギリシャ語の言葉が刻まれていた。
　この指輪は２００２年、ワイルドの学び舎だったオックスフォード大学マグダレン・カレッジから盗まれた。当時の評価額は３万５０００ポンド（約５００万円）だったという。指輪の行方は何年も謎のままで、もう溶かされてしまったのではないかとさえ危惧されていた。
　だが、数々の盗まれた有名な美術品を発見、回収してきたことから「美術界のインディ・ジョーンズ」の異名をとる美術調査員アルテュール・ブラント氏によって、指輪はついに発見された。裏社会のつながりを使って発見に至ったという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2019/11/19-08:51）

A golden ring once given as a present by the famed Irish writer Oscar Wilde has been recovered by a Dutch art detective nearly 20 years after it was stolen from Britain's Oxford University.
The friendship ring, a joint gift from Wilde to a fellow student in 1876, was taken during a burglary in 2002 at Magdalen College, where the legendary dandy studied. At the time it was valued at ��35,000 (40,650 euros, $45,000).
The trinket's whereabouts remained a mystery for years and there were fears that the ring -- shaped like a belt and buckle and made from 18-carat gold -- had even been melted down.
But Arthur Brand, a Dutchman dubbed the Indiana Jones of the Art World for recovering a series of high-profile stolen artworks, used his underworld connections to finally find it.
Mark Blandford-Baker, home bursar of Magdalen College, said they were very pleased to have back a stolen item that forms part of a collection relating to one of our more famous alumni.
We had given up hope of seeing it again, he told AFP.
The ring will be handed back at a small ceremony on December 4, said Blandford-Baker, adding we are extremely grateful to Arthur Brand for finding it and returning it to us.
- 'Gift of love' -
The ring was an important part of Magdalen's large collection of memorabilia related to Wilde, who penned classics such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.
It was a present from Wilde and fellow student Reginald Harding to their friend William Ward in 1876 while the Irishman was a student at Magdalen, one of the three dozen colleges that make up Oxford University.
The ring bears the inscription in Greek that says Gift of love, to one who wishes love. It also has the initials of: OF OF WW + RRH to WWW on the inside.
Disaster struck in 2002 when a former college cleaner named Eamonn Andrews broke into Magdalen, got drunk on whisky from the college bar, then stole the ring and two unrelated medals.
The college at the time offered a ��3,500 reward for the ring's safe return -- but after he was caught, the burglar told a court that he had sold the golden band to a scrap dealer for ��150.
That might have been that, had Brand not picked up the scent a few years back.
Rumours started in 2015 in the art underworld that a Victorian ring has surfaced 'with some Russian writing on it', Brand told an AFP correspondent, who saw the ring at an apartment in Amsterdam.
I knew that Oscar Wilde's ring was stolen from Magdalen College at Oxford and that it had a Greek inscription on it. It could have only been the same ring, he said.
- Twist in the tale -
The Dutchman then started to put out feelers.
Together with a London-based antiques dealer named William Veres, their enquiries eventually led them to George Crump, a man whom Brand described as a decent man with knowledge of the London criminal underworld because of his late uncle, a well-known casino owner.
Through Crump, Brand and Veres finally managed to track down and negotiate the safe return of the stolen ring.
Brand has previously hit the headlines for returning stolen artworks including a Picasso painting stolen from yacht in France, and Hitler's Horses, two bronze statues made by Nazi sculptor Joseph Thorak.
And the story of his latest find may have a final twist worthy of one of Wilde's tales.
Wilde's ring may have never been discovered were it not for another heist, when a gang of elderly criminals raided a vault in London's jewellery district in 2015 in what was described as the biggest burglary in English legal history.
There are very strong indications that the appearance of the ring is linked to the 2015 burglary at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit. Rumours that the ring has reappeared first started a few weeks after the burglary, said Brand.
And I was given the ring right in front of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit... which I thought was a bit of English humour.