An Essex artist has shared her sadness after a ‘very valuable’ piece of artwork was stolen from her home before Christmas. The bronze sculpture – worth around £60,000 – was stolen from the garden of Anne Curry in Essex.
Ms Curry, who is famous for her garden sculptures and portraits, came home from a funeral service on December 6 to find her La Promesse artwork had vanished from her garden in Arkesden, near Saffron Walden. The imposing bronze sculpture is of an iris flower and weighs around 350kg.
The 82-year-old artist fears never being reunited again with her prized sculpture, saying it might have been taken due to the value of bronze. Essex Police released an appeal on Sunday following the theft.
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Ms Curry was previously married to former Conservative MP David Curry and had made a bronze bust of Sir John Major that is at the House of Commons in London. She told the PA news agency: “They obviously had visited the site before.
“I have 15 to 20 sculptures in this garden, and almost all of them are resins because it’s safer for theft, and it’s safer to transport. The person who stole that one had been in the garden and systematically knocked on the sculptures to see which one was in bronze.”
She explained: “What people do not realise is that a bronze sculpture is not stolen for its beauty, it is stolen for the bronze which is taken immediately to a scrap merchant, cut up, and sold up, because the bronze is very valuable”
She added that La Promesse was “very valuable”, having cost her £20,000 to cast and having a market value of £60,000 – but that she also cherished it as her personal artwork.
“It’s one of my most successful pieces,” she said. “I’m very attached to it.”
The theft has also affected Ms Curry’s sense of security in her own home, saying: “There’s a feeling of hidden threat. When you live in a village you love, you don’t think of that, you don’t think of the environment as threatening, and it’s very upsetting to discover that there is a threat.”
PC Glenn Simons, who is investigating the theft, said: “I do not underestimate the impact this theft has had on the victim, and we will work determinedly to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry.”
Ms Curry was visited on December after reporting the theft earlier that month. The force made four attempts to contact her to arrange an earlier visit but they had “unfortunately gone unanswered”, a spokesman said.
Essex Police has urged anyone who may have information about any suspicious vehicles or suspicious behaviour in the Arkesden area on the evening of December 5 and the early hours of December 6 to get in touch.