ALEXANDER BOYLE & ASSOCIATES
SPECIALISTS IN ART THEFT RECOVERY
http://hamiltonauctiongalleries.com/Art-Theft-Recovery.htm
Christopher Weimann
Art Claims Consultant
203-915-7486
Beginning in the 1970’s when he worked with his father Robert Weimann, a pioneering dealer American Painters such as the Hudson River School and American Impressionism, Chris has been in the art business for almost four decades. He attended Landmark College in Vermont, after which he worked in numerous auctions houses and galleries located throughout New England. He knows anybody and everybody. He is no babe in the woods when it comes to the economic fallout of tough times and what kind of strange claims they provoke, in the economic upheaval of the early 1990’s he served as an expert witness in several cases of alleged insurance fraud, and through this contact with the state police became an expert on how to spy mischief in the making. As a restorer, in addition to being a dealer, he can verify and validate any and all claims of damage to determine if indeed the painting is damaged beyond recovery, or if a simple repair can be effected thereby avoiding the payout of potential catastrophic loss claims.
Anecdotally one area of particular expertise he has was based upon his brother’s gallery being robbed of numerous bronzes. Initially the group of bronzes were loaned to another gallery for an exhibition, then were supposedly returned. Upon further inspection then current group of bronzes did not fully match the earlier dimensions of the group that went out. It should be noted even when expertly done recasted bronzes are anywhere from 5% to 10% smaller than the original one because in cooling from molten to solid bronze shrinks 5-10 percent. So the cast for the original one should be a mold upwards of 10 percent larger than the first bronze. The long and short of it was they caught the dealer/thief, a fellow by the name of Roy Anderson and were able to get at least partial payment for what he stole. Years earlier, Roy Anderson stole upwards of one thousand and two hundred paintings and works of art alone from the Brigham Young University Museum. If Mr. Roy Anderson had been caught and prosecuted before the BYU fiasco, then the disastrous theft of a thousand plus works might have been averted.