Peterhead focus of international hunt for £13m masterpiece - BBC News
Paolo Veronese painted The Pool of Bethesda in the 16th Century and it was last known to be in Peterhead.
An engraving of the painting was made

An international search has been launched for a missing 16th Century painting worth millions of pounds which was last recorded in an Aberdeenshire town more than 100 years ago.

The Pool of Bethesda by Paolo Veronese was last documented in a Peterhead museum in the early 1900s.

Experts believe it could be worth £13m.

The University of Melbourne appealed for information on the Italian masterpiece and Aberdeenshire Council is also investigating.

Veronese's religious painting hung in the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

An engraving of it was made at that time.

The painting was at the Arbuthnot Museum in Peterhead

The painting was later bought by Catherine The Great of Russia, but it eventually made its way to the north east of Scotland.

It was gifted to Peterhead's Arbuthnot Museum and is last documented there in 1904.

Prof Jaynie Anderson from the University of Melbourne became interested as a colleague had a letter about the painting from the late 1800s which linked it to the National Gallery of Victoria.

She described it as an "important Veronese" worth "a lot of money" and started to look into its history.

"To my surprise we got an email saying it was probably in Peterhead", she said. "I had never heard of Peterhead before."

An image of the engraving is being used in the appeal to find the painting.

"I think it's a real problem of accountability", Prof Anderson said. "There must be a record of it. It's a bit of an odd one."

Her advice to anyone who realised they perhaps knew where it was hidden away, without its significance being realised, was to take it to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.

"These things do happen", she said."Where is it? I think it's just waiting to be discovered."

Prof Jaynie Anderson in Australia hopes the painting can be found thanks to the appeal

Fiona Riddell is the former curatorial assistant at the Arbuthnot Museum. She worked there for 19 years and retired last July.

She said a newspaper article from 1904 mentioned the painting being there.

"That's the last documented sighting of the painting", she said. "It could have still been there after 1904 but that's the only documentation I have so far.

"I truly believe nobody knew what they had. Apparently there was quite a poor restoration done on it before it arrived in Peterhead."

She added: "People have been searching for it all over Europe but obviously never thinking it was just in a little fishing town. But I never imagined the backstory. There can't be too many 12ft (3.6m) by 6ft (1.8m) paintings of the Pool of Bethesda that have gone missing.

"The worst scenario is that it's been destroyed. It weighed just under a tonne and it took seven men to take it up the Arbuthnot Museum stairs. You couldn't just put it under your oxter (armpit) and off you go. Somebody must know something about it.

"It meant something to Peterhead through religious value because the area was deeply religious at that time. It was more what it represented rather than the monetary value."

Aberdeenshire Council said in a statement: "We are one part of a puzzle to attempt to try and track down this historic artwork, a puzzle which has international significance.

"It is now clear that the piece was given to the then-Peterhead town council. That pre-dates both Aberdeenshire Council and its predecessor. The records which we have (and those which exist) from that time are being interrogated, helping us attempt to participate in finding out where it went."

The local authority added: "We are doing our bit, and ask anyone with information or memories of this piece to get in touch. Perhaps family members recall seeing it hanging in the Arbuthnot over the years, or are aware of why it came to be gifted to The Blue Toon (Peterhead).

"We are hopeful the collective effort can locate it once and for all."

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