French customs
officers have found an impressionist painting by Edgar Degas stowed on a bus,
more than eight years after it was reported stolen.
The French Culture
Ministry said that customs agents in Marne-la-Vallee were surprised to find a
work of art bearing the signature "Degas" inside a suitcase in the
bus' luggage compartment.
The ministry said
none of the passengers claimed the suitcase during the search.
Experts verified the
artwork as Degas' 1877 Les Choristes (The Chorus Singers), which depicts a
scene from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.
The painting was
stolen from a Marseille museum in 2009 while on loan from Paris' Musee d'Orsay.
French Culture
Minister Francoise Nyssen said she was delighted by the recovery of a work
"whose disappearance represented a heavy loss for the French impressionist
heritage".
The pastel was worth
an estimated 800,000 euros ($1.2 million) in 2009, according to a French
prosecutor.
Local media reports
originally valued the painting at an estimated 30 million euros.
Marseille public
prosecutor Jacques Dallest said there were no signs of breaking and entering at
the Museum from which Le Choristes was stolen.
Degas scholar and
biographer Henri Loyrette previously said the artist was one of the most
influential artists of the French Impressionist movement.
According to National
Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood the way Degas chose and treated his
subject matter set him apart from his contemporaries, and influenced the course
of modern art.
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