London gallery owner Patrick Matthiesen consigned a Gustave Courbet painting, *Mother and Child on a Hammock* (1844), to the Nicholas Hall Gallery in New York for Tefaf Maastricht 2023, listed at $650,000. After it failed to sell, Matthiesen was contacted by a man calling himself Thomas Doyle (also A.J. Doyle), who claimed to be a former US Air Force pilot, government contractor, and art dealer with family ties to Doyle Auctions. Despite Doyle having 11 prior fraud convictions—including stealing a bronze Degas statue in 2007—Matthiesen was convinced by artworks Doyle sent for inspection, including works attributed to El Greco, Rubens, and a Michelangelo drawing. In 2024, Doyle borrowed the Courbet to show a potential buyer and never returned it. Doyle has now been arrested for the theft.
This case underscores the critical importance of rigorous know-your-client (KYC) checks in the art trade, where trust and reputation often override due diligence. The arrest highlights how even experienced dealers can be deceived by sophisticated fraudsters who produce genuine artworks as credentials. It also raises questions about the art market's vulnerability to repeat offenders and the need for better information-sharing among dealers, auction houses, and databases like the Art Loss Register to prevent such losses.