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henri matisse painting

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Le Jardin, a Henri Matisse painting stolen in 1987 and valued at $1 million, has been found by an art recovery specialist in London.

Le Jardin (The Garden) was taken from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm during a robbery in the early hours of May 11, 1987.

According to reports at the time, attempts were made to sell it back to the museum for exorbitant sums.

The artwork is to be returned to the Swedish museum in the coming weeks.

The Art Loss Register, (ALR) a database of stolen, missing and looted artwork has been searching the market for the painting for the last 22 years.

A few weeks ago there was a search against its database from a fine art dealer in Essex, Charles Roberts.

He was carrying out due diligence, serving to confirm all material facts in regards to the sale, before handling the Matisse.

Once the match was confirmed, the recovery was handed to ALR director Christopher Marinello, who successfully negotiated the return of the painting.

“Art historians are invaluable on art recovery cases,” said Christopher Marinello.

“The ALR would not have been able to match and recover this painting without the steadfast dedication of ALR staff members, Malavika Baishya, Olivia Tate, and Pauline Geskes.”

Le Jardin, a Henri Matisse painting stolen in 1987 and valued at $1 million, has been found by an art recovery specialist in London

Le Jardin, a Henri Matisse painting stolen in 1987 and valued at $1 million, has been found by an art recovery specialist in London

Over the past seven years, Christopher Marinello, who is also a lawyer has been responsible for recovering or negotiating settlements in cases involving more than $245 million in stolen and looted artwork.

He said that Lars Nittive, the director of Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art in 1987, was absolutely correct when he told reporters that the painting was too well known to sell on the open market.

“I commend the museum for not giving in to ransom demands a quarter century ago. Stolen artwork has no real value in the legitimate marketplace and will eventually resurface… it’s just a matter of waiting it out.”

Museum officials congratulated the ALR on the recovery of the work, which is expected to be returned to the museum through the Swedish Ministry of Culture in the coming weeks.

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An FBI operation in Miami has recovered a painting which is believed to be a Matisse stolen from a Venezuelan museum more than 10 years ago.

A man and a woman allegedly tried to sell Matisse’s Odalisque A La Culotte Rouge to undercover FBI agents.

Pedro Antonio Marcuello Guzman, 46, and Maria Martha Elisa Ornelas Lazo, 50, have been arrested and charged with possession of stolen goods.

The 1925 painting has been valued at approximately $3 million.

The painting depicts a bare-chested woman sitting cross-legged on the floor wearing a pair of scarlet trousers.

It was stolen approximately a decade ago from the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art – formerly known as the Sofia Imber Contemporary Art Museum, or MACCSI.

A man and a woman allegedly tried to sell Matisse's Odalisque A La Culotte Rouge to undercover FBI agents

A man and a woman allegedly tried to sell Matisse's Odalisque A La Culotte Rouge to undercover FBI agents

In 2003 the museum discovered the original artwork had been replaced with a forgery after an art collector reported it was being offered for sale in New York.

A press release from the Department of Justice on Wednesday claimed Pedro Antonio Marcuello Guzman had agreed to sell the painting for $740,000 after admitting it was stolen.

“Marcuello allegedly admitted to the undercover agents during a meeting that he knew the painting was stolen and offered to sell [it],” the statement said.

The artwork was then brought into the US – from Mexico – by a courier identified as Maria Ornelas.

“Upon inspection by the undercover agents, the painting appeared consistent with the original Henri Matisse painting reported stolen from the MACCSI museum,” the statement said.

According to Reuters, the FBI’s National Stolen Art File database lists five other missing Matisse works, including a collection of 62 sketches.

His 1906 Pastoral was one of five paintings stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2010.

Earlier this year a Matisse floral still life, titled The Peonies, fetched $19 million at an auction in New York.