Truesee's Daily Wonder

'Portrait of a Girl,' the missing painting worth $1.35 million.

Lombard for NewsKristyn Trudgeon is suing over the loss of her painting.

A Manhattan man is being sued for losing a $1.35 million painting.

He blames the booze - saying the Jean Baptiste Camille Corot masterpiece, "Portrait of a Girl," vanished following a bender at The Mark hotel.

The artwork's co-owner, Kristyn Trudgeon, isn't buying James Haggerty's tale.

"I think he's a complete fumbling idiot," a visibly annoyed Trudgeon said outside her West Side apartment. "He's just a complete a--hole."

Trudgeon and Tom Doyle, who co-own the painting, had hired Haggerty, an old pal, to assist with a possible sale of "Portrait of a Girl" to London gallery owner Offer Waterman.

A July 28 afternoon appointment in Doyle's Empire State Building office fell apart when the Brit wanted a closer look at the painting.

The men agreed to meet later at midtown bistro Rue 57 with Doyle,who then ordered Haggerty to take the painting to The Mark, which is on the upper East Side, for further inspection by Waterman.

What happened next remains a boozy blur.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, says hotel security footage at 10:54 p.m. shows Haggerty sitting at a table with the painting. Six minutes later, he left the painting at the hotel's front desk and entered its bar with Waterman, who yesterday told the Daily News he was annoyed that Haggerty showed up without an appointment.

"That struck me as wrong," he said in a phone interview from London.

At 11:30 p.m., the two men left the bar, retrieved the painting and had a conversation in the hotel lobby, court papers say.

"Something just didn't feel right and I didn't want to be involved," Waterman said. "So I said no, and I said goodbye."

Haggerty went back to the hotel bar at 11:34 p.m. and once more deposited the painting at the front desk. He resurfaced 90 minutes later, the suit says, when he stumbled out with the painting and a doorman asked if he needed a taxi. "No," Haggerty allegedly slurred. "I have a car."

At 2:30 a.m., he finally returned home to his Trump Place apartment, minus the painting. Later that morning, the suit says, he informed Doyle that he couldn't recall its whereabouts because of his boozy blowout.

"We're skeptical as to the explanation," said Max DiFabio, a lawyer for Trudgeon.

The painting was part of a collection that made the rounds of museums in Paris, Beijing, San Francisco, Tokyo and Buffalo. Doyle, an executive with Imperial Jets, did not return calls, and Haggerty, who also works at the company, was missing in action at his homes in Manhattan and Long Island.

"Until we are able to account for that one hour and 40 minutes, we suspect anything," DiFabio said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/31/2010-08-31_man_sued_for_losing_135.html#ixzz0yGwHGxhO