A stolen painting valued at $1.7 million has turned up in the home of a Ukrainian man being looked at in a separate murder investigation. Last year, Port de La Rochelle, a 1915 painting by impressionist master Paul Signac, was stolen from the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy, a city in northern France. The art thieves pulled off a daring heist, cutting the work out of its frame and escaping undetected. Authorities in Ukraine recently reported that the painting turned up in the home of a Kiev man who was being investigated for killing a jeweler. The painting has been turned over to French ambassador Isabelle Dumont, and will be returned to the museum.
The recovery could be a breakthrough in a string of high-profile art heists, including a Renoir painting valued at $180,000 that was snatched from the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna last year. “We received information about a group of people looking for buyers for paintings stolen in Europe last year,” police official Sergiy Tykhonov said. “Several works of art have been discovered, including this painting, as part of a series of searches.”
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