Stolen Chagall painting to be returned to owner

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A stolen painting by the late Russian artist Marc Chagall is back in New York, but it won't be hanging in a museum anytime soon.

The 1914 piece, "Study for 'Over Vitebsk,' " surfaced last month at a U.S. postal center in Topeka, Kansas. It had disappeared last June off the walls of the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, where it was part of an exhibit of Chagall's early works held in Russian collections.

The FBI displayed the painting for reporters on Wednesday at the museum, where it was authenticated last week by Chagall's granddaughter, Bella Meyer, a leading authority on her grandfather's art.

"I was very, very surprised and happy that they found it," Meyer said. "It was truly an incredible joy. I didn't think it would be found again."

Meyer authenticated the 8-by-10-inch oil painting by removing it from the frame and examining the back of the canvas, where Chagall would write or leave paint stains as a trademark. She discovered a set of numbers on the back which she identified as being written in handwriting resembling her grandfather's. She also observed the paint had bled through the canvas, a sign of an old painting.

The painting will remain in FBI custody for the next several months as evidence, and then will be returned to its current owner in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Fingerprint tests "have been pretty much negative," said New York FBI Director Barry Mawn. Mawn said several leads in the theft are being pursued.

The painting depicts Chagall's hometown in Belarus and shows an old man wearing a cap, carrying a walking stick and beggar's sack, floating in the sky above the village. It was last seen in public June 7, 2001, during a museum cocktail party. It was gone the next day.

An unusual ransom note sent to the museum four days after the theft suggested the painting would be returned when peace was achieved "between Israel and Palestine." The letter, postmarked in the Bronx, was signed by a previously unknown group, the "International Committee for Art and Peace."

A postal employee in the Topeka dead letter office discovered a painting that appeared to be the stolen work January 22. Mawn said the package was wrapped in brown paper and had been placed in the mail with no address or return address, and was then forwarded to the Topeka facility.

The FBI had previously stated that the package had been addressed to a nonexistent location in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Upon opening the package, the postal worker saw the painting bore several stickers from museums and galleries on the back. She turned it over to a superior, who checked the FBI Web site for stolen art, saw the stolen Chagall listed and called the FBI.

"We really don't feel we did anything exceptional. It was an exceptional result, but we were just doing our job," said Douglas Myers, a manager at the Topeka facility.

Chagall, who left Russia in 1922 and settled in France, died in 1985 at the age of 98. Many of his paintings depict Jewish folklore and scenes of pre-World War I life in Russia.