ICE Officials Say “Au Revoir” to Stolen Pissarro

More than 30 years after a daring museum heist, a valuable piece of impressionist art is on its way home to a French museum.

At D.C.'s Kreeger Museum on Wednesday, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials showed off a monotype, entitled "The Fish Market," for the final time on U.S. soil. The work, by artist Camille Pissarro, was snatched from the Faure Museum in Aix-les-Bains, France, in 1981.

A man named Emile Guelton was fingered as the thief. About four years after he reportedly smuggled the monotype out of the museum under his jacket, he sold it to a gallery in Texas for $8,500.

French authorities considered the print lost for good until it was set to be auctioned off by Sotheby's in 2003. That's when the Art Loss Register discovered the work and notified international authorities about the long-lost monotype.

If the work had indeed hit the auction block, it could have sold for an estimated $60,000 to $80,000, according to ICE.

Several years of investigating and and a few legal battles later, federal officials were able to claim the Pissarro and return it to the Faure museum. ICE called it a happy ending for international authorities and art-lovers alike.

"Returning this piece of art to the people of France is another great example of the ongoing work ICE HSI agents are doing to investigate the theft of cultural treasures and return them to their rightful owners," ICE Director John Morton said.