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Frenchman in Florida charged in Monet, Sisley art heist

28.06.2008 15:01 Arts - Source: cbc.ca

Alfred Sisley's 1890 The Lane of Poplars near Moret was one of four paintings stolen from the Museum of Fine Arts in Nice, France. The paintings were recovered in early June in a sting operation. (Musee des Beaux Arts de Nice/Associated Press)

U.S. prosecutors have charged a French man living in Florida in connection with an audacious art theft of paintings by Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Jan Brueghel.

Bernard Jean Temus has been indicted on a single count of conspiring to sell the paintings stolen by masked gunmen from the Museum of Fine Arts in Nice, France, in August 2007.

The paintings were recovered in early June in Marseilles after a sting operation. Ten people were arrested.

The recovered paintings are:

Claude Monet's Falaises prs de Dieppe (Cliffs Near Dieppe ).
Fellow impressionist Alfred Sisley's Alle de peupliers de Moret (The Lane of Poplars at Moret ).
Flemish master Pieter Breugel's Allgorie de l'eau (Allegory of Water) and Allgorie de la terre (Allegory of Earth ).

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida announced Friday that Temus, 55, had tried to sell the paintings to undercover FBI agents.

Apparently, the quartet of masterpieces was being sold for the equivalent pf $4.8 million Cdn

According to the indictment, Temus, who lives in a suburb of Miami, met with the agents posing as potential buyers several times starting last October. The meetings took place in Miami, France, and Barcelona, Spain.

The Monet and Sisley paintings have been stolen before — from the same museum.

Back in 1998, the curator at the time staged his own heist in which he pretended he had been taken hostage by thieves. The curator was later convicted and sent to prison, and the paintings were found in a boat docked in Nice's harbour.

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