How did the Renoir painting come to the flea market?

This find was made in 2009. An American woman bought a painting at the flea market, which, as it turned out, was the work of Auguste Renoir's Landscape on the Seine in 1879. A purchase made in Virginia cost the woman only $ 7.

As the customer herself admitted later, it was not the picture that attracted her, but the frame in which she was placed. She was indifferent to painting, and she decided to simply resell the frame.

On the advice of her mother, the American took the purchase to an appraiser. In the auction house, after examination, it was established that this is the original of the impressionist Auguste Renoir “Landscape on the banks of the Seine”. The cost of the painting was estimated at 75,000 dollars.

Since the picture was once stolen, its resale was illegal, which made the woman very upset. This impressionist-style landscape came to the States in 1926 thanks to the collector Herbert Mei. Then the canvas was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, from which it was stolen in 1951. As a result, 5 years after finding in the flea market, in 2014, the picture was returned to the museum.