{"id":558031,"date":"2026-06-28T07:37:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558031\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:37:30","slug":"award-winning-artist-told-ive-got-bad-news-after-7000-painting-delivered-to-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558031\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning artist told ‘I’ve got bad news’ after \u00a37,000 painting delivered to Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lucy Pittaway has attempted to contact the “buyer” but their phone number is dead and the email bounced back\"liverpoolecho\"<\/p>\n

00:01, 28 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

\"Award-winning<\/p>\n

Award-winning artist Lucy Pittaway is appealing for help finding her missing painting(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

An award-winning artist’s painting was pinched by a gang who used “stolen credit cards” and got it delivered to a Liverpool address. Lucy Pittaway’s original framed painting “Yorkshire Welcomes the World” was seemingly bought by an unknown buyer believed to be based in Liverpool<\/a> for \u00a37,000 back in October last year.<\/p>\n

The buyer had phoned one of the galleries displaying the North Yorkshire-based artist’s work and said they had seen the painting, part of a cycling-themed series, and wanted to buy it and have it delivered to Liverpool<\/a>. The painting was paid over several different cards with a number of payments failing before the price was eventually reached.<\/p>\n

Following what appeared to be a successful purchase, a driver who works for Ms Pittaway’s company delivered the painting to an address on Carver Street, on the outskirts of the city centre<\/a>. But weeks after the sale of the painting, Ms Pittaway’s co-director told her that the bank had been in touch and said the card transactions were all on stolen cards and the small business owed the full sum back.<\/p>\n

This has left 51-year-old Ms Pittaway, who is based in Brompton-on-Swale, both out of pocket and without her original artwork. The acclaimed artist said attempts to contact the “buyer” had since been unsuccessful, adding: “The number was dead and the email bounced back. These people had just vanished into thin air.”<\/p>\n

Appealing for the public’s help in tracking down the missing original, Ms Pittaway said: “It has been quite upsetting for me. I like to meet a lot of the owners of my originals. I don’t know where this painting is and I feel like the hard work has all been for nothing.”<\/p>\n

\"Award-winning<\/p>\n

Award-winning artist Lucy Pittaway is appealing for help finding her missing painting(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Ms Pittaway’s team told the ECHO<\/a> they have passed information to the relevant police forces and were referred to Report Fraud. Since then they claimed they have had to navigate several different referrals and had to chase different authorities for information about their cases.<\/p>\n

But this week Chief Superintendent Amanda Wolf, head of Report Fraud operations, told the ECHO<\/a>: “A report relating to the alleged theft of a painting was made to Report Fraud on 24 February 2026. Report Fraud receives tens of thousands of reports every month.<\/p>\n

“It is important that reports include sufficient detail to enable us to assess them properly for high harm and vulnerability and identify any viable lines of enquiry.<\/p>\n

“In this case, the information provided was not sufficient to allow the report to be progressed or passed to a police force for investigation. If further relevant information becomes available, we would encourage it to be submitted so the report can be reconsidered.”<\/p>\n

Ms Pittaway, who has been recognised as the UK’s most popular artist by the Fine Art Trade Guild on multiple occasions, told the ECHO<\/a> that a member of her staff had taken a call from one of the fraudsters who said they had seen the painting online and was comfortable buying it without viewing it in a gallery. The artist continued: “She tried to put through the full amount on one of the credit cards that had been supplied and it declined.<\/p>\n

\"Lucy<\/p>\n

“Yorkshire Welcomes the World” by Lucy Pittaway(Image: Lucy Pittaway)<\/p>\n

“She was asked if she could put it through with a lesser amount and after a few failed attempts the payments went through. I asked ‘was this not a red flag’, but she said ‘because this had happened many times before because credit cards have limits on what they are prepared for clients to be able to put through in a single transaction’.<\/p>\n

“There was a little bit of email contact between our gallery and the buyer confirming address and time and a couple of weeks later it got delivered to the address in Liverpool. The driver delivered the painting and when he got back he said the house was scruffy.<\/p>\n

“My originals are worth up to \u00a313,000 but you don’t judge a book by its cover. Our staff were only acting on instructions. It was only a little later that my co-director said ‘Lucy, I need a word. I’ve got some really bad news’.”<\/p>\n

Ms Pittaway told the ECHO that as a small business they were no strangers to fraud. She said online competitions had previously been targeted with fraudsters attempting to gain credit card information from prospective winners. However, she added this was the first time they had been swindled for their original artwork like this.<\/p>\n

\"Award-winning<\/p>\n

Lucy Pittaway has been recognised as the UK’s most popular published artist on several occasions<\/p>\n

The award winner continued: “It has been really frustrating for me because I spent a couple of weeks working on that painting for nothing. If I had given it away to charity or gifted it to someone it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but it hasn’t gone to a good cause.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been victims of crime here and somebody has it somewhere. Perhaps someone paid good money for that painting in genuine faith. The painting was delivered with all the documents supporting the sale. It is authentic and would look so to a second-hand buyer. Whoever has it now will be unaware of its history.”<\/p>\n

Ms Pittaway said her business was family-run and a loss of this amount of money has put a significant dent in their operation. “We’ve had to close galleries recently and make redundancies because the economic climate is harder and more difficult to operate in,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Things have been tough for us anyway in the last 18 months as a business in retail. We are not immune from that. We know lots of businesses who have gone under. To have to give back \u00a37,000 and not have the painting is rather difficult.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Ms Pittaway told the ECHO: “Anyone who is offered the painting for sale, knows of its current whereabouts or has any information that could assist, is urged to contact info@lucypittaway.co.uk<\/a>. All information received will be treated confidentially.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucy Pittaway has attempted to contact the “buyer” but their phone number is dead and the email bounced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,715,366,18,117,19,17,46681,238674,1560],"class_list":["post-558031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-crime","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool-city-centre","tag-new-islington","tag-premium"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116826593761387828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}