Stolen Painting Returns Home After 30 Years

A painting that was stolen from a museum in Scotland has been returned more than 30 years after it went missing.

The artwork, which was taken in 1989 from the Hawick Museum, has now been returned to Glasgow Museums, a network of museums in the Scottish city.

The painting, titled “Children at the Stream” by Robert Gemmell Hutchison, was stolen along with several other works from the Hawick Museum, which has since closed down. Thieves had disabled the alarm system and entered through a window to carry out the heist.

At the time of the theft, a Scottish newspaper reported that the burglars had used a ladder to climb through the window. The painting was valued at £8,000 at the time.

The museum officially closed its doors in 1998.

The stolen painting was later listed on the official stolen art register, and it was finally identified when a family—unaware of its history—offered it for sale at an auction.

The painting was subsequently withdrawn from the auction and returned to Glasgow Museums.

Its return comes only weeks after museum officials reported the disappearance of a Rodin sculpture valued at £3 million. According to museum representatives, the missing piece was a sculpture by Auguste Rodin, part of his famous “The Burghers of Calais” collection.

In recent months, several major art thefts have made headlines. The British Museum confirmed the disappearance of thousands of objects from its collection, a scandal that eventually led to the resignation of the museum’s director.

According to a BBC report, the National Museum of Wales, which oversees seven national museums, also announced that 2,000 objects were missing. The institution believes that many of these items may have simply been misplaced or omitted from catalog records and are expected to be found after thorough investigations.