O wning dozens of newspapers and an art collection said to be worth billions, the late Kenneth Thomson was the archetypal media baron—a literal one: His father, Roy Thomson, received a hereditary peerage in 1964. Art was one way the famously private magnate stepped out of his shadow, lending works to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto from the mid-1990s.
In 1997, he loaned five 18th-century carved ivory plaques by the French sculptor David Le Marchand, including a portrait of Isaac Newton. The relief had been commissioned by the English polymath, who died in 1727, for the sum of £100. It passed to his physician, Dr. Richard Mead, a collector whose estate was sold in 1755 at an auction organized by Sotheby’s founder. Lost from the record for two centuries, it later passed through the saleroom again in 1963 before being acquired for Thomson’s collection.
One Saturday in January 2004, barely a year after Thomson committed C$300 million worth of art to the AGO, plus a further C$50 million toward its expansion, the ivories were stolen. Exits were blocked as patrons and staff were searched, but to no avail, and within hours, Toronto police contacted Interpol, fearing the works might be quickly smuggled abroad.
Insurance investigators suspected the theft was a student prank gone too far. On January 30, just 45 minutes after local newscasts aired security footage of “persons of interest,” police received a call from a Toronto lawyer. A still-unknown figure had contacted him earlier that day and, invoking attorney-client privilege, used him as a conduit for the ivories’ return.
The next day, Thomson was reunited with the ivories at a press conference, prompting an uncharacteristically candid response. “For the past two weeks, I’ve been in a terrible emotional state,” he said. “I know you shouldn’t get too excited about material things, but these were very, very special.” Pointing to the Newton portrait, he said, “To have lost that would have been to lose a little bit of myself.”
