Painting stolen in WWII is heading from US to Ukraine

A painting that was stolen during World War II and later spent decades in a Connecticut home will be returned to an art museum in Ukraine, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

The couple, David and Gabby Tracy, had long cherished the painting but figured it was a copy, not the signed original. As they made plans to move to a condominium in Maine last year, they realized the painting wouldn’t fit. They hired an auctioning company near Washington to sell the work, which was appraised at about $5,000.

The FBI seized the painting after the retired couple in Ridgefield transported it to Washington, .D.C., to be auctioned last year. Standing nearly 8 feet tall (2.4 meters), the painting depicts the 16th century Russian czar Ivan the Terrible looking crestfallen as he flees the Kremlin on horseback

After the auction house added the painting to its catalog, though, an employee received an urgent email from an art museum in Ukraine. “Attention! Painting ‘Ivan the Terrible’ was in the collection of the Dnepropetrovsk Art Museum until 1941 and was stolen during the Second World War,” the email said, according to court documents. “Please stop selling this painting at auction!!!”

https://www.apnews.com/79b24712dfb34d3abd013b4dff913b26