Reward offered for Moore statue's heads

MARIANNE MACDONALD

Arts Reporter

The owner of a Henry Moore statue decapitated by vandals four months ago has stepped up his search for the missing heads by offering a reward of up to pounds 5,000.

The misshapen heads were sawn off the bronze sculpture, King and Queen, in March as it stood in the grounds of Lincluden Estate in Dumfries, owned by a leading businessman, Henry Keswick.

The incident, which shocked the art world, was one of the most damaging examples of art vandalism in recent years.

Yesterday Mr Keswick's land agent, Thomas Florey, of Smiths Gore, Castle Street, Dumfries, said the reward was a last resort. "A week after the incident we employed the local sub-aqua club to search the nearby reservoir and they found the hacksaws we think the vandals used, but no heads.

"We also employed a local man with a metal detector to search the estate but he found nothing. We are hoping the reward will turn something up."

The statue is worth up to half a million pounds and was one of seven created by Moore in the early 1950s. It was bought soon afterward by Mr Keswick's father for the sculpture gallery he created on the estate.

The statue is now at the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire. Unless the heads emerge in the next few weeks it will attempt to recast them. But it warns that if the casts are not of a high enough standard it will not make the repair. If they are successful, King and Queen will go back on display in the sculpture park, which is open to the public.