A Norman Rockwell painting was stolen on Sept. 13 from a WelPak Art and Moving Storage unit in Maspeth, Queens. Police announced on Tuesday that they're searching for the thief who stole the $1 million dollar "Sport" painting, CNN reported.
The oil on canvas painting, "Sport," shows a man in a rowboat wearing a yellow raincoat, holding a fishing pole and was published on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1939, according to CNN.
Police say the painting was being stored while awaiting shipment to its owner who paid $1,085,000 for it at a Sotheby's auction of American art in New York City on May 22. Neither NYPD nor Sotheby's would identify the owner of the painting, CNN reported.
Before being sold in May, it was part of a private collection in Birmingham, Alabama, and before that, it was owned by the Hildebrandt family of Westchester County in New York, CNN reported. The painting is signed by Rockwell on the lower right and is 22 by 28 inches, framed in gold wood.
According to ABC News, the Art Loss Register had 41 other stolen Rockwells on file, making it a popular item with thieves, as well as collectors.
"Norman Rockwell is very well known because of the publications from many years," Chris Marinello, who until recently handled all the art recovery cases for the Art Loss Register for the past seven years, told ABC News. "He's an American icon, and the thieves know this as well, so they target this type of work."
Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, told ABC News it's "most unlikely that somebody could sell it for its real value, but somebody might be able to sell it in a dodgy manner for a fraction of its value, either because they haven't read the newspapers or because they're not too fussy of what they buy."
