Fisherman's Daughter by Breton Goes Home

After 90 years, master painter Jules Breton's painting titled "Fisherman's Daughter" has finally gotten home-and a chapter in the history of art theft can finally be closed.

Stolen from the Douai Beaux Art Museum in North France by German troops during the First World War, the story of "Fisherman's Daughter" has long been one of the greatest mysteries in the art world.

In 2011 there was a break in the case which had long been cold. Interpol was alerted that the painting had been imported into New York by an art dealer. But was it the real painting? Or just a masterful fake? Valued at over $150K in todays market, celebrations on its recovery had to be withheld until the experts could establish its pedigree.

Art experts, curators and historians from France and the United States were called in to examine the painting and investigate its long and clandestine history. After a close examination of records and documentation, both in the United States and in France, and visits to museums and key witnesses, the story of the painting emerged.

But where had it been? What had happened to it for nearly a century? Investigators discovered that during the German occupation of the northern part of the country. German troops confiscated artwork from the Douai Beaux Art Museum and sent the artwork to Mons, Belgium, and then to Brussels.

In 1919, the Belgian government organized the return of the French collection to France, but the painting was not part of the cache. It's believed that before the Belgan government could repatriate the pieces that Breton's painting was stolen once again.

There's where the case goes cold. No one knows what happened to the painting, other than the fact that the painting was professionally restored since it was stolen from Douai Beaux Art Museum. The painting was apparently in private hands recently, then turned up being imported to an art dealer in New York last year.

Today, U.S. officials returned the masterpiece to the French people at a ceremony in Washington attended by the French ambassador, ending the nearly century-long art mystery.