Police have made a fresh bid to recover £120,000 worth of paintings stolen in Kings Langley.

Antiques dealers and art galleries all over the world have now been alerted to the theft of the pictures after a half page advertisement seeking information about their whereabouts was placed in this week’s Antiques Trade Gazette.

This latest development means that it is now virtually impossible to sell the pictures on to anyone in the trade.

Three of the paintings taken in the Kings Langley raid are by Royal Academician, Wilfred de Glehn (1870-1951).

They are titled: The Ebble, Stratford Tony, Wiltshire; A Distant View of Coutances, France; and Battersea Bridge, which, at £60,000, is the most valuable of the four stolen paintings.

The fourth picture, House In A Park, is by Spencer Frederick Gore (1878-1914), whose father, Spencer William Gore, won the first men’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1877.

Anyone with information about the pictures should contact PC Sam Floyd on 01707 354000 or Christopher Monks at Criterion Adjusters on 01483 891999.