After travelling the world, the plaster figure is now crumbling in a crate in a Toronto warehouse, the cracked relic of an international art scandal.

It might be the work of renowned French sculptor Auguste Rodin, worth $425,000 according to one appraisal — or it might be a valueless fake.

But since it was rendered one-legged during shipping years ago, one thing is certain: nobody wants Walking Man now.

The sculpture was at the heart of a long-running dispute that became a $500,000 lawsuit between its owners and the Barrie art gallery that once displayed the now-damaged piece.

“Some claim Walking Man is an irreparably damaged original Rodin sculpture worth lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to its owners,” wrote Barrie-based Superior Court Justice Guy DiTomaso in his decision to dismiss the claim this week for being filed a month too late.

“However, others claim Walking Man is really nothing more than a broken conversation piece, like some novelty item, having no commercial or artistic value at all.”

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Claiming the sculpture was damaged while in the care of the MacLaren Arts Centre, plaintiffs Dino DeLuca and experienced litigator Grant Vogeli demanded damages of $500,000.

Two appraisals submitted by the plaintiffs value Walking Man at either $250,000 or $425,000. The loan agreement valued it at $277,500 for insurance purposes.

Justice DiTomaso, however, instead ruled that plaintiffs DeLuca and Vogeli owe the gallery $8,522.55 in storage fees.

“I think MacLaren is very happy to put their difficulties with the Rodins in their rear view,” says MacLaren lawyer Arnold Schwisberg.

Walking Man was supposed to be part of a huge coup for the up-and-coming Barrie Gallery, set to stage a high-profile Rodin exhibition at the ROM in 2001. Then everything went wrong.

The high-profile show lost $750,000 because it opened a week after the Sept. 11 attacks. Even before that, positive headlines caught the eye of the protective Musée Rodin in Paris, who immediately challenged the authenticity of the Rodin bronzes and plasters obtained by the gallery.

France eventually launched an investigation into the authenticity of Walking Man and other so-called Rodins.

DeLuca and Vogeli say they bought the sculpture in 1998 for $62,500 U.S., along with five other Rodin plasters.

It was for an “art flip,” whereby the buyers could have gotten a tax benefit worth about six times the purchase price. The sculpture was then loaned to the gallery for display.

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However, as MacLaren noted in their counter-claim, the person selling the Rodin plasters was Gary Snell, head of an Italian-based art company, Gruppo Mondiale. Snell, according to MacLaren, is “a convicted fraudster who had been prosecuted criminally by the Republic of France for art fraud involving Rodin sculptures,” wrote DiTomaso.

That fraud means “there are a lot of fake Rodins out there,” says Schwisberg.

“This particular piece was probably never worth anything from the get-go,” he said. The art flip failed after the Canadian Cultural Property and Export Review Board raised questions about the authenticity of the sculpture and its circuitous route to Toronto, via possibly Italy, France, England and New York.

Rodin pieces have been a particular bane to MacLaren.

In the early 2000s the gallery became embroiled in a convoluted deal with Gruppo Mondiale and other investors to obtain a series of Rodin bronzes. MacLaren was to sell the bronzes to Canadian investors, who would get a huge tax benefit and donate the piece back to the gallery for display.

When the plan was rejected by the Canada Revenue Agency, the deal collapsed, leaving the gallery foundering and mired in scandal.

Walking Man, along with the other Rodins, was transported to an art storage facility in Gatineau, Que. In 2004, while financially imperiled, the gallery wrote to the owners telling them to take it back.

They did not, so after an examination by French expert as part of the criminal investigation, Walking Man arrived at a Toronto warehouse in 2006. It has been there ever since.

The damage to the sculpture, discovered in September 2007, is thought to have occurred during the move to Toronto.

MacLaren’s expert, Susan Maltby, reported that “an inadequate crate and insufficient padding material” were used in the transfer, wrote DiTomaso.

DiTomaso ruled that the plaintiffs knew about the damage by Oct. 19, 2007, but only filed a statement of claim in November 2009, a month after the two-year limitation period was up.

“I find an experienced commercial litigator and art owner in the circumstances of Mr. Vogeli should not have waited for October 18, 2009 to arrive without issuing the Statement of Claim,” he wrote.

The plaintiffs declined to comment through their lawyer John Adair.

The owners should make arrangements to take back Walking Man before more storage charges accrue, DiTomaso said.

“It is the rejected gift that keeps on giving.”