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Baltimore police uncover 1951 Renoir theft report
AP
This image released by Potomack Company shows an apparently original painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir that was acquired by a woman from Virginia who stopped at a flea market in West Virginia and paid $7 for a box of trinkets that included the painting. Anne Norton Craner, fine arts director for the Potomack Co. auction house in Alexandria, Va., says the woman made an appointment in July to see if it might be real. Craner says the painting was verified through a close look at the colors and brushwork along with the help of the French publisher of a catalog of Renoir's work. Craner said the painting is "Paysage Bords de Seine." (AP Photo/Potomack Company)
Posted 9/28/12
WASHINGTON — Police have located a 1951 theft report from the Baltimore Museum of Art of a Renoir painting matching the description of one that turned up recently at a West Virginia flea market.
The report from Nov. 17, 1951, was uncovered Friday. It says there was no evidence of forced entry at the museum. The painting was valued then at $2,500.
A Virginia woman bought the painting for $7 at the flea market in 2010. It was expected to fetch $75,000 at a now-postponed auction.
Museum officials were combing through paper records to learn more about the theft. So far, they have found a record documenting the painting was on loan from art patron Saidie A. May.
Before the police report, it was the only record of the painting being stolen.