In the provincial store discovered drawing of Van Gogh
ARTinvestment.RU   22 сентября 2009

In an antique shop a small American town of Raton, was found Van Gogh's drawing, which is probably a sketch for the famous painting "Night Cafe"

The other day in an antique shop, located in the town of Raton (New Mexico, USA) have discovered the Van Gogh drawing. He was put up for sale with a price tag of $ 250. Figure likely to be stolen from the artist living in Santa Fe.

The robbery occurred on May 13. Along with drawing criminals kidnapped a number of other valuables - paintings, old musical instruments, weapons of XV century, jewelry (including watches Rolex), silk Persian carpets and appliances. Santa Fe Police investigating the robbery, together with experts from the "art unit" FBI.

The fact that the figure is ratonskom shop, became known by chance: the owner of the work a woman called wanting to know how many are purchased there pictures. It turned out that the paintings are among those that were stolen from the house of the artist. Sept. 10 custody order came into the store. Seeing how much estimated figure of Van Gogh, they realized that ratonskie antiquarians did not recognize in him the original of the famous wizard. Apparently, the burglars also had no idea of its true value - otherwise, they turned into some major auction house. The owner claims that the picture is a sketch for the famous painting "Night Cafe". Its potential value - from 250 thousand to 1 million dollars. To be more precise yet not: the image does not appear on the market about a hundred years. All this time he was in the collection of the artist's family. The sketch is not signed, and the attribution was not conducted, but the representative of the FBI Stephen Marshall (Stephan Marshall) said that there is no reason to doubt the words of the collector.

Marshall also said that members of the antique store expressed their willingness to do everything in their power to help the investigation. According to him, the police and the FBI did not believe that antiquarians somehow complicit in the crime - they just did not know that some of the items offered for sale are stolen. Investigators suspect some Raton resident, who may be soon arrested.

The owner of the shop, which is called "old clothes and furniture", is a kind of Hand Glen (Glen Hand). A staff member told me that he does not appear to work for a whole month. At the end of this month Hand is going to close the store.

Material prepared Yulia Maximova, AI

Source: trinidad-times.com , artinvestment.ru