Paintnaping Perils

On the night of Dec. 13, FBI men entered a flophouse in Bridgewater, Pa., and arrested a chunky character named Ralph Charlton Hobbs. The G-men charged that he was one of a gang that last July stole ten paintings from the home of Millionaire Collector G. David Thompson in the Pittsburgh suburb of Whitehall. Hobbs was picked up after he opened direct negotiations with Thompson on Thompson's no-questions-asked offer of $100,000 for the return of the paintings. In fact, to show his good faith, Hobbs had returned one Picasso; the G-men. after trailing Hobbs for three months, found the other paintings rolled up in a mattress cover in a room at a Pittsburgh motel. Presumably they had been left there by other members of the gang for Hobbs to pick up after completing a deal with Thompson.

The dramatic recovery should have been a cause for celebration in the fortresslike Thompson house. The paintings included works by Matisse, Leger and Miro, and their market value was estimated at around $500,000. But as of last week, Thompson still did not have his paintings. Instead, they were in a Pittsburgh bank vault in the name of Philadelphia's Insurance Co. of North America.

About a month after Hobbs first made contact with Thompson, the insurance company paid off the collector $189,000 for his losses. The FBI therefore turned over to the company the nine paintings that it recovered. Thompson can have them back by returning the $189,000 to the insurance company. But the paint-napers damaged their loot, and Thompson says the insurance company owes him $70,000 to cover the restoration. The company argues that $7,750 would be ample. At that, Thompson was better off than the lenders to last July's Cezanne show on the Riviera, whose eight canvases have still not turned up, and the National Gallery in London, which is still short one Goya, the $392,000 Duke of Wellington.

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