Art: From a Dilapidated Barn

As welcome as a new acquisition is an undamaged reacquisition, and last week Saint-Tropez’ Annonciade Municipal Museum was readying its blank walls to receive 56 canvases heisted last year in one of the Riviera’s most daring fric-fracs (TIME. July 28, 1961). Tipped off by an anonymous letter to France’s Minister for Cultural Affairs Andre Malraux, police found the robbers’ cache stashed away in a dilapidated barn 50 miles west of Paris. The $1,500,000 worth of art, including works by Matisse, Dufy, Utrillo and Bonnard, had come through the ordeal almost unscathed; among the rolled-up canvases, only two were slightly damaged.