A Marc Chagall painting stolen from a New York couple’s home in 1988 will be returned to the family’s estate after nearly 30 years, the FBI says, the BBC reports.
The 1911 painting, Othello and Desdemona, was taken from Ernest and Rose Heller’s flat with more than a dozen other works of art and jewellery.
The Chagall was recovered last year after a Washington, DC gallery owner twice refused to purchase the painting.
He told the seller to contact the authorities for proof of ownership.
“We took the case from there,” said Special Agent Marc Hess, a member of the FBI Art Crime Team.
The Maryland man who tried to sell the work had stored it in his attic for years in a customised box he fashioned out of a door jamb and plywood, according to Mr Hess.
He was given the painting in the late 1980s or early 1990s from another man who is suspected of taking it from the Upper East Side building where the Hellers lived, prosecutors said in a court filing on Thursday.
