Bath House, Piccadilly

[5] Walford noted that it contained "a fine collection of pictures, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish schools, formed by the builder of the mansion ... afterwards the first Lord Ashburton of the present creation.

Waagen included the 1st Lord Ashburton in a list of "the most distinguished collectors in England since 1792" (I:26-7) in the 1854 edition of his work, Treasures of Art in Great Britain.

The three paintings referred to were subsequently identified as Christ and the Baptist as children (likely by Bernardino Luini, now lost), Wolf and fox-hunt (Rubens, now in the Metropolitan Museum, from the collection of Lord Ashburton), and A woman with a dish of roasted apples (Pieter de Hooch, in fact destroyed in the fire).

Expert thieves entered the collection room on the first floor overlooking the Green Park, broke open several of the cases, and stole exquisite antiques of the 15th and 16th centuries.

The circumstances indicate that the thieves are themselves art experts, and it is believed that they will not melt the gold and sell the precious stones individually, but rather attempt to dispose of the valuables intact on the Continent or in America.

The detectives were engaged on an important line of inquiry last night, and the police at all the ports were alerted, as it was thought that the thieves would attempt to leave the country in order to dispose of the property to foreign dealers.