Matisse’s painting stolen 25 years ago is returned

The stolen painting by Henri Matisse, valued at $ 1 million (620,000 pounds), was discovered by art critics in London. The painting "Garden" (Le Jardin) was taken out of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm during a robbery on the night of May 11, 1987. Later, the abductors tried to sell the work back to the museum for a lot of money.

Matisse’s painting was the only one stolen during the attack on the museum. The robbers burst through the main passage, smashing the door with a sledgehammer. The guards arrived only 10 minutes after the alarm, during which time the criminals managed to escape. After the abduction, a number of experts said that it would be impossible to sell the painting on the open market because of its wide popularity. It was this aspect that became decisive in the decision not to pay ransom to the robbers for the canvas.

The other day, "Garden" was discovered in Essex, after a Polish collector tried to sell it to art dealer Charles Roberts (Charles Roberts). By querying the Art Loss Register (ALR), the largest database of stolen art objects, Roberts found out that this painting by Matisse has been wanted for 25 years.

ALR Director Christopher Marinello was able to agree on a free return of the masterpiece to the UK. In the coming weeks, the picture will be transferred to Stockholm. Typically, ALR receives a small reward from insurance companies for each returned piece of art, but as it turned out, the painting by Matisse belongs to the state and was not insured. Marinello himself called the return of work "a Christmas present for the people of Sweden."

Born in France, Henri Matisse was a close friend and rival of Picasso, the founder of the Fauvism movement. He developed new ways to use colors and images of human figures, which played an important role in determining the direction of development of art throughout the twentieth century.

Anna Sidorova