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Police Uncover Renoir Painting Theft Report

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The small, unassuming landscape with a gold frame that caught the eye of a buyer at a West Virginia flea market two years back turned out to be the work of Auguste Renoir, and now it's catching the eye of law enforcement.

Baltimore police dug deep to find a 1951report of theft from the Baltimore Museum of Art describing the loss of a very similar painting.

Former FBI investigator Robert Wittman says the flea market Renoir's dimensions and composition, light brushstrokes of green and yellow surrounding a gently implied body of water, could be key in matching it to a stolen piece.

The flea market find was expected to fetch $75,000 at an auction, but that has now been postponed.

The original owner of the stolen painting died the same year her painting disappeared.

NPR

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NPR

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a 16th-century artist who liked to play with his food, transforming it into the building blocks of many of his fantastical portraits. Artist Philip Haas has taken those portraits out of museums, reinterpreting them as colossal statues that interact with the natural environment.
NPR

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NPR

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