Stolen Renoir nude found after 33 years
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Italian police have recovered stolen oil painting of a naked woman by French master Pierre-Auguste Renoir, nabbed from a private collection 33 years ago.
Three suspects have been arrested.
Police were acting on a tip-off from a prominent art critic, Vittorio Sgarbi, who had been contacted by an art gallery owner in the Italian city of Riccione for a valuation of the Impressionist master's work.
Police arrested the gallery owner and two other suspects.
The Renoir, valued at $883,000, was recovered along with a forgery of a work by Edouard Manet which Mr Sgarbi had also been asked to appraise, local police chief Giovanni Nistri said.
The Renoir nude was stolen from a Milanese family in 1975 and the owner's daughter recognised the authenticity of the recovered work due to the mark of a ball she hit it with in the early 1970s, the ANSA news agency reported.
- AFP
