Theft and Litigation
The painting was stolen during an exhibit at a small art gallery in Clayton, Missouri, in June 1973. In 1988 it turned up and was sold at an auction in New Orleans for about $70,000. Steven Spielberg bought the painting from Judy Goffman Cutler, a noted art dealer who specialized in American illustrators, in 1989 for $200,000. A member of his staff spotted the painting on a FBI web listing of stolen works of art and the authorities were immediately notified.
By 2009 the painting was in the custody of the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. The court decided in 2010 that the painting belonged to art dealer Judy Goffman Cutler who has added it to the collection on display at the National Museum of American Illustration.
Read more about this topic: Russian Schoolroom
Famous quotes containing the word theft:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)