Russian police have recovered a painting by prominent artist Arkhip Kuindzhi stolen from a Moscow gallery on Sunday and detained the suspected thief, TASS state news agency said on Monday, citing a police official.
A 31-year-old man told police where he had hidden the painting, TASS quoted a spokeswoman for the Russian Internal Ministry, Irina Volk, as saying.
The work, “Ai Petri. Crimea”, was painted in 1908 by Kuindzhi, a Russian artist of Greek origin, and depicts a mountain in the Crimea peninsula.
It was stolen from Moscow’s Tretyakov art gallery on Sunday. Kuindzhi’s 1881 work “Birch grove” was sold at auction house Sotheby’s for more than $3 million in 2008.