£200,000 sculpture that turned up in a fire escape

Standing more than two metres high and depicting the Holocaust within its layers of interleaved bronze, it was hardly a run-of-the-mill garden ornament.

But it was only when a squad of detectives from Scotland Yard's art and antiques unit arrived to inspect the statue chained to a fire escape at the rear of a block of flats in Streatham, south London, this month, that residents realised the true identity of the one-tonne art work in their midst.

Far from being an unwanted purchase from a DIY store, the sculpture was a £200,000 creation by Helaine Blumenfeld, vice-president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, which had been stolen in 2005.

Gene Phillips, 64, who has lived on the Manor Court estate for 19 years, said: "I always wondered what it was. It just turned up one day, a big lump of metal, but there was no one around to ask. I've walked past it every day for a couple of years. Then one day these police arrived and said it was a famous statue. I didn't have the faintest clue."

The recovery of the art work, Transformation - Tree of Life, was the culmination of an extraordinary saga which had begun with a raid on a warehouse less than five miles away.

It also represented a rare success in attempts to recover some of the 20 large statues and bronzes which have been stolen across Britain in the past two years.

Campaigners are calling for the creation of a register of public sculpture, ranging from war memorials to figures on gravestones.

The work by Ms Blumenfeld, who lives in Grantchester, near Cambridge, had been awaiting shipment to Italy for exhibition when it was spirited out of a specialist warehouse in Southwark, south London, in July 2005.

Ms Blumenfeld said: "It was taken from a difficult position. I still don't really understand how they were able to get it out. It felt like they had come particularly for that piece. I decided it was just a dead loss. It had not been sold and I had to bear the cost of making it."

The story may indeed have ended there were it not a phone call to a gallery in central London earlier this year during an exhibition of Ms Blumenfeld's work.

The call to the gallery in Duke Street came from a woman inquiring whether it would be interested in buying a sculpture by the artist. The description given by the woman closely matched that of Transformation - Tree of Life, of which there are only two examples.

Ms Blumenfeld said: "She more or less wanted to be told over the phone what it was worth, sight unseen. She would not give any contact details. I told Scotland Yard and they said they would look into it. But I didn't hear anything until a week or so ago when I got a call from the detectives to say they had made contact with the person who had called the gallery. Then I got another call a few days later to say they were standing looking at my sculpture."

Scotland Yard said no arrests had been made in the case, suggesting that the sculpture had been sold on by the thieves without its identity being known.

The sculpture, which was made in 2003, was this weekend sitting in a secure police warehouse awaiting collection by Ms Blumenfeld. She said: "It was a very important piece for me. It was to commemorate the Holocaust. It was a tree of life, the bottom was twisted as an emblem of many bodies then building up as a symbol of rebirth. It was a piece I really valued and to think that it was stolen to be melted down or re-sold to somebody was terrible."

Still missing

* Reclining Figure by Henry Moore, right. Three-metre bronze statue, worth £3m, stolen from the Henry Moore Foundation, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, in December 2005.

* The Watchers by Lynn Chadwick. Two-metre figure, one of three, taken from Roehampton University, south-west London, in January 2006.

* Lt George Armstrong by Henry Pegram. First World War Memorial taken from St Leonard's Church, Semley, Wiltshire, in May 2006.

* Bronze sphinxes. Two figures taken from Horsmonden, Kent, in a series of thefts including a church sundial and several statues in June 2006.

* Dancing Girl by William Theed. Marble statue stolen from Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells, in October 2006.

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