Connecticut man pleads guilty to stealing Courbet painting

A Connecticut man pleaded guilty Friday to wire fraud in a scheme to defraud a New York art dealer out of a painting by the 19th-century French Realist Gustave Courbet and keep the proceeds of its resale, federal prosecutors said.

Thomas Doyle, 68, who also used the names "AJ" and "Austin Doyle," entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian in Manhattan federal court. He is scheduled to be sentenced November 9.

Doyle pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, prosecutors said. He also agreed to forfeit all proceeds from the offense and pay $125,000 in restitution to the victim.

"Thomas Doyle defrauded the owner of a valuable painting by telling a series of brazen lies to get the painting and then sell it so he could keep the profits for himself," U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said.

"Today's guilty plea reflects the commitment of this office and its law enforcement partners to hold all fraudsters accountable, including bad actors seeking to conduct fraud schemes in the U.S. art market."

The scheme ran from December 2022 to March 2025 and centered on Courbet's Mother and Child on a Hammock, prosecutors said.

In June 2024, the dealer agreed to let Doyle take custody of the painting so he could show it to a potential buyer, prosecutors said. The dealer later authorized Doyle to sell the work on his behalf for $550,000.

By early August 2024, Doyle falsely told the dealer he had sold the painting for that price, prosecutors said.

Instead, an associate acting on Doyle's behalf offered the painting for consignment to a Manhattan gallery, passing along a false provenance that Doyle had supplied, prosecutors said. The gallery sold the work on October 1, 2024, for $125,000 to a collector, and most of the proceeds went to Doyle.

Doyle never paid the dealer any of the money, prosecutors said. By February 2025, he had spent all of it on personal expenses and his own debts.

Doyle then falsely blamed the missing payment on the purported buyer, claiming the buyer had not yet paid when Doyle had already been paid and was spending the proceeds, prosecutors said.

The announcement did not name the dealer, the associate or the gallery. Urgent Matter previously reported that Matthiesen Gallery identified itself as the victim when it filed a civil lawsuit against Doyle.

That lawsuit also revealed that Doyle's business partner, Shalva Sarukhanishvili, handled the resale, selling the painting to Jill Newhouse Gallery for $115,000 and later paying Doyle $109,250. Friday's announcement put the sale price at $125,000 and said the gallery sold the work to a collector.

Doyle was previously convicted in the Southern District of New York in 2011 of a separate art-related fraud, prosecutors said. Urgent Matter previously reported that an earlier art fraud conviction involved Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot's Portrait of a Girl and that Doyle was sentenced to six years in prison.

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