QUARANTINE BLOG # 460

July 3, 2021

THE THEFT OF THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGES

On April 10, 1934, Beadle van Volsem made his final rounds of the day at Saint Bavo Cathedral, and the cathedral was closed for the evening.

At 7:30 a.m. the next morning, when the Beadle made his first rounds he saw a broken padlock. A side door to the church was open. The Ghent Altarpiece was still on display inside the chapel, but one of the panels was missing.

The Beadle ran to the office of Canon van den Gheyn, the man who had defended the altarpiece during the First World War. They summoned the police, but word got out. A crowd gathered inside the cathedral to see the scene of the disappearance. 

When Chief of Police Patijn arrived, he saw a note pinned to the frame of the empty panel. It read, “Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles.” The missing oak panel had displayed the painted sculpture of Saint John the Baptist, and the Righteous Judges on horseback, traveling to see the sacrificial Lamb. There were no fingerprints, no footprints, no clues.

From the outset, the theft was investigated in a strange and surprisingly unprofessional manner.

The missing panels

First, Chief of Police Patijn had been investigating a report on the theft of cheeses, and was delayed because of it. After arriving at the cathedral, he neglected to evacuate and seal the premises, and the mass of people milling about erased any clues that might have been left. He ordered no investigation of the surrounding area, took no fingerprints nor any photographs. After a cursory look around the crime scene, Patijn excused himself to resume the investigation of the stolen cheese.

Van Eyck’s altarpiece had been back in its home, whole, and intact, barely more than a decade.

The first lead came almost three weeks later on April 30, 1934, when the bishop of Ghent, Monsignor Honore-Joseph Coppieters, received a ransom note typed in French, and said only one member of their group knew the location of the panels. If something happened to him, they would be forever lost.

To show their good faith, the thieves proposed to return Saint John. Then the bishop would be given an address to which one million Belgian Francs was to be delivered. Once they had the money they would tell the bishop where to collect the Righteous Judges. 

Carbon copy of the first ransom note

The bishop was to place an ad in the classified section of a local newspaper. The note was signed, “D.U.A.”

The bishop and the police submitted a classified ad: “D.U.A. As agreed with authorities, we accept your proposition fully.”

Then the bishop received a letter which contained a station luggage check for the Brussels train station.

The Brussels train station

The parcel contained the original front half of the panel; the painting of Saint John the Baptist. 

Altogether, 13 letters were delivered. The last letter arrived on the first of October. The next six weeks passed in silence. Then something happened that sounds so melodramatic that it might have appeared in a work of fiction.

On November 25, 1934, at a meeting of the local chapter of the Catholic Political Party, 57 year old Arsene Goedertier collapsed from a heart attack. Carried to a nearby inn, he was attended a physician, and then taken to the home of his brother-in-law.

Lying on what would be his deathbed, Goedertier refused a last confession from the priest, saying, “My conscience is at peace.” He instead summoned his lawyer, Georges de Vos. De Vos arrived and met with Goedertier in private for 15 minutes. Then Arsene Goedertier died.

When de Vos emerged from the death chamber, he said  nothing to anyone present, and did not go to the police.  One month later he revealed that, with his dying breath, Arsene Goedertier had admitted to being the thief. His last words were, “I alone know the location of The Mystic Lamb ... my study, in the file marked Mutualite ... armoire ... key ...” And then, with operatic timing, he died.

De Vos went to Goedertier’s home was let in by his wife, Julienne. 

Goedertier’s home

In the study, in the top right-hand drawer of Goedertier’s desk, in a file labeled Mutualite (mutual insurance companies) de Vos found carbon copies of every one of the ransom notes. There was a final, undelivered letter which said that the panel was hidden somewhere prominent, in a public place.

The police gave up officially in 1937. Their closure of the case concluded: Goedertier stole the Righteous Judges  panel; Goedertier composed and sent the ransom notes;  on his deathbed Goedertier tried to atone but died before he could relate sufficient information to recover the panel; Goedertier acted alone. There was no second shooter on the grassy knoll.

In police files, the panel is still labeled “lost.” In art terms, lost means that the work may have been destroyed or damaged, or simply that its location is unknown. In police terms, it indicates that the authorities have given up trying.

Commissioner Karel Mortier, chief of the Ghent police from 1974 to 1991, undertook a private investigation. He discovered that all of the files relating to the theft had disappeared from the city archives. And all of the files relating to the theft had disappeared from the cathedral archives.

In 1939, the conservator of the Royal Fine Arts Museum, Jef van der Veken, began work on an excellent replacement copy of the Righteous Judges – a copy that many, to this day, think is far too good to be a copy. He finished his copy in 1945. In 1950 it was placed in the frame along with the recovered Saint John the Baptist and the eleven original panels.

This case is one of the great unsolved mysteries in the history of art theft. In Belgium, the mystery excites a passion reminiscent of the Kennedy assassination in the United States. Authorities continue to investigate astonishing and unbelievable leads, as the search for the missing panel continues. But The Ghent Altarpiece, minus the Righteous Judges, would undergo one more storm of theft, smuggling, and ultimate salvation.

👉  We conclude today with the story of the writing of America’s national hymn.

It was a deadly September attack on America.  Casualties on our own shores.  The nation’s capitol targeted.  The White House in danger.  Terror.  Heroes.

One hero was Francis Scott Key, a Georgetown attorney heavily involved in national politics.  An evangelical Christian, Key taught Bible classes and witnessed boldly, once telling a friend in Congress, “Christ alone can save you from the sentence of condemnation.”

He also wrote hymns, but nothing prepared him for the hostage-recovery mission he undertook at the request of the president of the United States.  He was seeking the release of a prominent physician, Dr. Beanes, who had been taken captive.  During that assignment he was detained by enemy troops and forced to watch a brutal assault on the eastern seaboard.

Toward the morning of September 14,1814, when it became clear that American forces had withstood the twenty-five-hour bombardment, Francis Scott Key penned another hymn, scribbling it on the back of an envelope.  The first stanza we all know, but have you ever sung the last stanza of The Star-Spangled Banner?

        Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 

        Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

        Then conquer we must when our cause it is just.

        And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

        And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 

        O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

After sunrise, the British released Key, and back in Baltimore he wrote out this hymn in fuller form and showed it to his brother-in-law, who promptly gave it to a printer who ran off handbills for distribution on the streets.  One copy landed in the hands of an unknown musician who adapted it to the tune “To Anacreon in Heaven.”  So was born the patriotic hymn that was to become our national anthem.

Here is The Star Spangled Banner performed by the Concert Band and Soldier's Chorus.

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