- We have just been reached by the news that sales are being withdrawn. We are extremely pleased, says Helena Persson, director of the Norrköping Art Museum.
Carl Larsson's painting Karin peels apples (1904) was donated to the Norrköping Art Museum by the museum's great donor Pehr Swartz in 1920. But in the late 1980s the painting disappeared mysteriously and on Monday it appeared at a Danish auction house.
The starting price was equivalent to just over SEK 700,000.
- There is some obscurity about the disappearance, the theft was reported to the police in 1990 and then it was gone for a long time, says Helena Persson.
The painting appeared in 2011 at Bukowski's auction house. And now the work would again have changed owners through a Danish auction house. But after Norrköping's art museum paid attention to the auction house on the situation, sales were withdrawn.
- We do not question that the current owner bought the work in good faith, but we see ourselves as the rightful owners, says Helena Persson:
- The painting has a strong connection to Norrköping, it is both cultural heritage and art history. We wish nothing more than that the painting would somehow be returned to the Norrköping Art Museum.