Posted on 04/07/2013 7:12:27 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
A Virginia woman claiming to have purchased Renoir painting for $7 at a flea market has been unmasked and is now under FBI investigation after it emerged the painting was stolen in 1951.
Marcia 'Martha' Fuqua from Loudon County, Virginia, had tried to remain anonymous and said she purchased the painting simply for its frame and had no special ‘understanding of art.’
But it has now emerged that the painting 'On the Shore of The Seine' was reported stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1951, according to the Washington Post.
The FBI seized the painting late last year after learning that information and it has since emerged that Fuqua's mother was a painter who specialised in reproducing the work of several artists including Renoir.....
In Fuqua's September interview she told the Post, 'It’s all very coincidental ... I am one of those people that believes that things happen for a reason.'
'I noticed the frame on this picture and I liked the frame. I bid $7 and I won the box,' she said.
Though the frame boldly shows a center plaque reading RENOIR on it, she said she never thought that it would be authentic, it having been found in a box at a flea market after all.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It would be curious to know where it sat from 1959 to 2013. My humble bet is that some insider to the Museum stole it, and put it for safe-keeping in the attic til they could re-sell it. The guy passes away, and it all gets parted up with relatives who never know the value.
How could the cops know about it unless she tried to sell it? If she tried to sell it to a legitimate art dealer then she couldn’t have known it was stolen. If she tried to sell in underground then it must have been an undercover cop that nabbed her.
Any other theories?
Looks like she wasted her $7.
I gotta get an eye exam. The frame is clear but the painting is fuzzy.
If I saw that at a flea market I would have pegged it as a fake.
Most of the “art” that fetches millions of dollars looks just like the stuff that I put on the fridge when the kids brought it home from school.
I don’t know how an art authority could possibly know that it was being sold in a flea market. They don’t usually attend such low brow markets.
The only thing I can think of is that the authorities were more aware of the location of this particular painting than they were willing to admit to and just were biding their time until it saw daylight.
Well,,,, Today,,,, Art can be a booger with a hair in it!
I first thought, why would anybody pay $7 for that, then I thought ... Hell why would anybody steal it.
RENOIR 1841-1919 on the frame and someone sells it for $7???? They don't bother to check to see if the painting is a Renoir???
And the daughter of a woman who restored works of art like Renoir just happens to find it in a flea market????
It's been in the family for 60 years and the daughter knew it was stolen and came up with the $7 flea market story so she could claim it as hers and unload it for a load.
Lived a good part of my life in Baltimore.
Amazed that they had a Renoir to begin with.
Read the article. Her mother was an artist and she did reproductions, especially Renoir.
Looks like she needed money and decided to chance it.
In Fuqua's September interview she told the Post,
You know, I'm no expert, but isn't it RULE NUMBER ONE that if you're " trying to remain anonymous", that you DON'T GIVE INTERVIEWS ?
Renoir’s paintings are really something...
I was looking at a print of a large one, one day, and suddenly a real-life image of what he was painting must have looked like snapped into my head, and I couild see it as vividly in my imagination as if I was standing there. I could see how he capture the feel of it perfectly
40 years later I still rmemeber that sudden feeling, in every Renoir I look at.
I get a slight feeling of it again from this one...
There were two wealthy, Baltimore high society sisters, Claribel and Etta Cone in the early 20th Century who put together an impressive collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings which they left to the BMA and Walters Art Gallery pretty well known in art circles as, "the Cone Collection."
Not sure if this painting was part of it, but certainly wouldn't be surprised if it was.
If only there was more information than that excerpt, somewhere...
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