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.
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Famous quotes containing the word theft:
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)