BALTIMORE, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A Baltimore museum has asked a judge to rule a woman who bought a Renoir painting for $7 at a flea market has no right to the property because it was stolen.
The Baltimore Museum of Art says in court documents that even though Marcia Fuqua, 51, of Virginia, bought the work in 2009 in good faith, she was not entitled to keep it, the Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday.
As proof the museum was the rightful owner of the artwork, lawyers presented a transcript of a four-page letter written in 1935 in which Baltimore art collector Saidie A. May said she was indefinitely loaning the painting and others to the museum.
The notebook-paper-sized painting went missing from the museum in 1951. Fuqua purchased the work from the Harpers Ferry (W.Va.) Flea Market in 2009. She had the work appraised by an auction house, which estimated its value at between $75,000 and $100,00
The Renoir was scheduled for auction when the FBI seized it after the museum produced documents showing the painting had been stolen from a museum gallery.
The museum's attorney, Maria Diaz, doesn't dispute how Fuqua came to own the painting.
"Even if she did purchase the painting at a flea market without knowledge of its authorship and/or title, her claim must still fail as a matter of law because the painting was stolen from the BMA," Diaz said in a court filing.
The museum is seeking a summary judgement, which can only be granted when the facts of the case are not in dispute.
