On Wednesday, April 2, Italy’s Culture Ministry unveiled two paintings that were recovered by police specializing in locating stolen art. The works, which are by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard, had been hanging in an Italian factory worker’s kitchen for nearly 40 years. He was unaware of the spectacular value of the works in his possession.
The two paintings were stolen from a London home in 1970 and then abandoned on a train traveling from Paris to Turin. The works were stored in an Italian Railways lost and found facility until they were offered at a lost-property auction in 1975. A Fiat factory worker with a passion for art purchased the paintings for roughly $30. A friend of the factory worker alerted Italian heritage police last summer when he grew suspicious of the paintings’ value.
Gauguin’s “Fruits sur une Table ou Nature au Petit Chien” is estimated to be worth between 10 million and 30 million euros. The Bonnard painting, titled “Le Femme aux Deux Fauteuils,” is said to be worth around 650,000 euros. The investigation into how the paintings ended up in the Fiat worker’s kitchen are still ongoing. It is unclear who the works will be returned to since the original owners have passed away.
