BALTIMORE — A Renoir painting returns to public display this weekend for the first time in more than 60 years since it was stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting “On the Shore of the Seine,” dated about 1879, became the subject of a dramatic legal dispute after a Virginia woman claimed she bought it at a flea market for $7. Others, including her brother, disputed the story.
Now that a judge has awarded ownership of the small painting to the Baltimore museum, it will be the centerpiece of a special exhibition March 30 through July 20.
The exhibition, “The Renoir Returns,” will reunite the small painting with more than 20 other artworks from the collection of Baltimore arts patron Saidie May. She bequeathed her collection to the museum.