Saffron Walden Anne Curry bronze sculpture stolen from home

Anne Curry’s sculpture, La Promesse, depicts an iris flower and weighs around 350kg – vanishing from the artist’s garden in Arkesden, Saffron Walden overnight between December 5 and 6 2024. 

Police have said that the statue has a manufacturing value of £20,000 and a sale price of £60,000 with no arrests having been made at this stage. 

The 82-year-old artist, who is famous for her garden sculptures and portraits, including a bronze bust of Sir John Major that she made for the House of Commons, said she immediately reported the theft to the police.

She said of the theft: “It’s just unbelievable, it’s extraordinary.

“I had been away for the day because of a funeral in Warwick and I returned in the evening to see the sculpture had gone. It had obviously happened in the night.”

She added about the perpetrator or perpetrators: “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.”

Ms Curry added: “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.”

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 enquiry.

“I would also urge anyone who may have information about any suspicious vehicles or suspicious behaviour in the Arkesden area on the evening of Thursday 5 December and the early hours of Friday 6 December to please come forward.”

To provide information to police, call 101 and cite investigation reference 42/183678/24

Image Credits and Reference: https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/24833947.saffron-walden-anne-curry-bronze-sculpture-stolen-home/?ref=rss