Focus on this artwork and explore the Theft and litigation.
The painting was stolen during an exhibit at a small art gallery in Clayton, Missouri, in June 1973. In 1988, it turned up and was sold at an auction in New Orleans for about $70,000. Steven Spielberg bought the painting from Judy Goffman Cutler, a noted art dealer who specialized in American illustrators, in 1989 for $200,000.  A member of his staff spotted the painting on an FBI web listing of stolen works of art and the authorities were immediately notified. By 2009, the painting was in the custody of the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. The court decided in 2010 that the 1973 owner had been appropriately reimbursed and that the painting belonged to Cutler, who had by then traded it with Spielberg for another work; she subsequently added it to the collection on display at the National Museum of American Illustration, which she co-founded.
illustrator Judy Goffman Cutler National Museum of American Illustration FBI U.S. District Court in Las Vegas Steven Spielberg Clayton, Missouri art dealer