The Fish Market: Trail of Stolen French Art Leads through San Antonio

by Bill Davenport January 30, 2012

A ceremony was held last Wednesday in Washington to return a Pissarro monotype, Le Marche aux Poissons, to the French ambassador, Francois Delattre. The print had been allegedly taken from the Faure Museum in Aix-les-Bains, France, in 1981 by known art thief Emile Guelton, then sold through J. Adelman Antiques in San Antonio to Sharyl Davis, who paid $8500 for the piece, in 1985. 23 years later, when she tried to re-sell the piece through Sotheby’s, it was spotted in the auction catalog as stolen. Davis forfeited the piece, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to hang onto it, or get some compensation; meanwhile Guelton, never charged by French authorities, is living on a boat in the south of France.

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