With Clark uninterested in looking further into the painting, it was put on the backburner until 2005, when it was learned that the Degas was in the possession of Henry and Marion Bloch. If these names are not familiar, Henry is the H in H&R Block, and his fortune was about what you might expect from the founder of one of the largest tax prep companies in the country. Once the FBI caught on to the fact that the missing painting was found, they contacted Bloch. However, the Blochs had reason to claim they legitimately owned the painting.
The Blochs were art collectors, and in 1993, they purchased a Degas painting from a gallery in New York. The gallery owner had done what he thought was a thorough check when he purchased and later sold the piece. The Degas ballerina was not on the Art Loss Register, and there were no other obvious red flags that it was stolen. For everyone involved in the transaction, it seemed as though Henry and Marion Bloch legally bought a painting.
This had the potential to be a complicated legal kerfuffle. Henry and Marion Bloch wanted to keep the piece, and they did have legal precedent to say they had a right to. The FBI was not certain that the painting was stolen. There was no evidence to show what happened to it. All that was known was that one day it was hanging in Clark’s apartment, and then it wasn’t. Plus, Clark had made no efforts to get the painting back. These factors could mean that Clark lost her rights to claim that it was hers.
Diving Into The Dumb Legal Mystery Over A Missing $10 Million Painting
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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