Ukrainian art dealer Vadym Huzhva has been sentenced to five years in prison by a judge in France for coordinating the theft of the Paul Signac painting Port de la Rochelle. The sentence also included punishment for the theft of four other works, including a Renoir, and a rare book from museums and auction houses in France, as well as an order to pay nearly €300,000 in damages.
Huzhva had pled not guilty, telling the court, “You have no proof of your allegations.”
The news was first reported by regional newspaper L’Est Republican.
The French Impressionist painting was stolen from its frame in 2018 from the Musée de Beaux-Arts in the northeastern French town of Nancy. The museum had paid $1.5 million for it. Three thieves were able to walk out of the museum during the day with the Signac after removing the canvas using a box cutter, rolling up the work, and tucking it under a raincoat.
Two years ago, Nancy’s public prosecutor François Pérain said the crime surprised everyone for its simplicity. “They wore headgear but they acted with their faces uncovered, entered by the main entrance and left through the same door.”
The painting was found by police in Ukraine in 2019 after a suspect for an unrelated murder case revealed its location and said Huzhva had coordinated the theft. That suspect, currently in prison in Kyiv, was also given a three-year sentence by the French court for his role as an accomplice in the Signac case.
The four other artworks Huzhva was also found guilty of stealing—by Eugène Boudin, Galien-Laloue, Giorgio de Chirico, and Renoir—are still missing.