[MSN] Dumped oil painting 'worth $1m'

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Dumped oil painting 'worth $1m'
A painting stolen 20 years ago then found lying in a pile of rubbish  
on a New York City street could fetch up to $1m (£488,000) at auction  
next month.
The 1970 painting Tres Personajes (Three People) by Mexican artist  
Rufino Tamayo was taken from a warehouse where the owners had placed  
it while moving.
It was found by Elizabeth Gibson as she took her morning walk four  
years ago on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
It is now being sold by the widow of the original owner.
Website clue

Elizabeth Gibson said she was drawn to the painting when she spotted  
it on the street.

"I just knew it meant something. ... It was extremely powerful, and  
even though I didn't understand it. I knew it had power," she told  
the Associated Press news agency.

She said she had learned of the work's worth when her research led  
her to the website of Antiques Roadshow FYI, a companion programme to  
the American show Antiques Roadshow, on which the painting had featured.



She will receive a $15,000 reward the couple put up when it was  
stolen, plus an undisclosed percentage of the sale of the painting.

It is still not known how the painting ended up on the street.

The owners - a couple from Houston whose names have not been  
disclosed - bought the oil on canvas, with marble dust and sand  
worked into the paint, in 1977 at Sotheby's.

August Uribe, Sotheby's senior vice-president of Impressionist and  
modern art, said that the husband had paid $55,000 for it as a gift  
for his wife. The husband later died.

At the time of the theft in 1987, the couple alerted local and  
federal authorities.

Information on the painting was posted on the databases of the  
International Foundation for Art Research, and the Art Loss Register.

Sotheby's said the painting, which it described as an important work  
of the artist's mature period, would go up for sale at its Latin  
American Art auction on 20 November.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7059599.stm

Published: 2007/10/24 10:07:49 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Winner of the 2004 Hugo award - The Chesley Awards: A Retrospective,  
with John Grant & Elizabeth Humphrey