A Ben Franklin for two BenCabs
March 12,2010
FEDERAL Express has offered the magnanimous sum of $100 as payment for the two stolen paintings of National Artist Ben Cabrera that were lost in the care of the $39-billion cargo forwarding conglomerate.
The Sawed-off Container
“FedEx has closed the caseand is offering to pay [the Singaporean art dealer] $100 only, which is the maximum amount they would pay in a case like this,” Annie Sarthou, BenCab’s wife, said in an e-mailed statement.
“They still refuse to cooperate,” Sarthou added, still referring to FedEx, one of the most world’s most admired companies in 2009, according to Fortune magazine.
Two BenCab acrylics on canvas, Twins and Three Women, were FedExed by the AndrewShire Gallery in Los Angeles to the home of its Singaporean partner, Susan Baik, sometime last month.
Baik was shocked to see the tube sawed open and the precious paintings missing when she retrieved the package from the FedEx warehouse in Singapore.
Sarthou declined to add more details, apparently because of a looming damage suit set to be filed by Baik in Singapore and by the AndrewShire Gallery in Los Angeles.
The BenCabs were among the paintings exhibited in the three-man show in AndrewShire from Oct. 24 to Nov. 21 that also featured the works of Putu Sutawijaya of Indonesia and Ahmad Zakii Anwar of Malaysia.
AndrewShire agreed to FedEx the two paintings upon the request of two prominent Filipino buyers, who had asked that the BenCabs be shipped and picked up in Singapore rather than sent by air direct to Manila, precisely for fear that the valuable cargo could be waylaid.
According to Sarthou, an apologetic Baik had, in the meantime, reimbursed the two unnamed Filipino buyers, hoping to collect against FedEx in the future.