Italian police recover painting by Marc Chagall stolen from United States yacht more than a decade ago

ROME (AFP).- A painting by Marc Chagall stolen from a US yacht moored in Italy has been recovered more than a decade later in a private collector’s home, Italy’s art theft police division said on Monday.

The Russian-born Jewish painter’s “Le Nu au Bouquet” was stolen in 2002 while the boat was being repaired in the port of Savona in northern Italy and was replaced with a forgery.

The work, which was bought by an unnamed wealthy US national for his yacht in 1998, is valued at more than 1.0 million euros ($1.3 million).

File photo of A Marc Chagall with his family at their home in Vence in the south of France in April 1951

Three people — two Romanians who worked on the yacht at the time and a gallery owner from Bologna — are under investigation, Italian media reported.

Police were first alerted when the man’s heir travelled to Italy to recover the yacht following his death and discovered the painting was a fake.

The police said they first heard about the painting in 2012 during an investigation on traffic in stolen art through a gallery in Bologna.

The police said the collector from Turin had bought it in 2003 in good faith and the thieves had even obtained an official authentication.

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