FBI agents in Florida, USA, arrested two malefactors who were trying to sell for a third the price of Henri Matisse's painting "Odalisque in red trousers", which disappeared from the museum 10 years ago.
According to CNN, citing state prosecutors, Matisse's precious painting was stolen from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, back in 2002. Since then, the fate of the painting was unknown to either law enforcement agencies or art critics.
However, the $ 3 million loss surfaced in July 2012. 46-year-old Pedro Antonio Marcello Guzman, a resident of Miami, and 50-year-old Maria Marta Eliza Ornelas Laso, originally from Mexico, were seized by the secret services while trying to sell the painting "Odalisque in red trousers" for only 740 thousand dollars. At the same time, the would-be sellers did not even hide the fact that Matisse's painting was stolen. FBI officers volunteered to buy Odalisque, and they arrested the intruders. Suspects from Mexico flew to Miami specifically to meet with the "buyers". During the negotiations on the price and the completion of the deal, they were arrested.
The detainees are accused of storing a stolen piece of art and transporting it. If the court finds a man and a woman guilty, the couple face up to 10 years in prison.
Now the Venezuelan government is concerned about the soonest return of Henri Matisse's masterpiece to Caracas. The authorities made an inquiry to the FBI to obtain official confirmation that the Odalisque had been found.
The painting "Odalisque in red trousers", painted by Matisse in 1925, has disappeared under rather strange circumstances. Initially, the canvas was kept in the gallery of art in New York. In 1981, the canvas was transported to Venezuela and resold to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas. There it hung for a long time. The loss of the exhibit was revealed in 2003, when museum specialists discovered that instead of the original, a fake had been hanging in the exhibition hall for a year.
