Chagall painting recovered 30 years after theft from a New York couple's apartment

A painting by Marc Chagall stolen 30 years ago from a New York couple’s apartment has been recovered and is being returned to the family’s estate, the FBI said Thursday. The 1911 painting, “Othello and Desdemona,” was stolen in 1988 along with other works of art — by Renoir, Picasso and Hopper — from the Manhattan home of Ernest and Rose Heller, the FBI said in a statement. The oil painting, which shows Othello gazing at a sleeping Desdemona, was recovered last year after a man in the eastern state of Maryland contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said the Maryland man got in touch with law enforcement after a failed effort to consign the painting to an art gallery in Washington. The gallery owner was “suspicious about the lack of paperwork supporting the painting’s authenticity and provenance,” the FBI said. The Maryland man obtained the painting in the late 1980s or early 1990s from the man who stole it from the Heller’s apartment, the FBI said.