Most of the Quebec collectors who buy and sell the works of Jean Paul Riopelle know each other by name, so when a newbie popped up on Kijiji classified ads offering a trove of valuable lithographs, he drew instant curiosity.
Adam Tazi, a young collector of Riopelle's art, asked the online seller if the iconic artist had signed the 1990s prints to authenticate them. They weren't signed, the seller replied. They had been caught up in a legal dispute over the estate of the artist, who died in 2002, the man added.
"This made little sense to me," said Mr. Tazi, who has bought and sold a few of the valuable prints online in the past five years. "I decided not to engage in any further conversations with him."
In May, about five months after the exchange, Quebec provincial police arrested Luc St-Jean, 39. He faces several counts of theft and obstructing justice, and is accused of stealing four albums containing a dozen lithographs each.
Investigators say they have recovered all but four of the prints, and are asking for the public's help to find the others. Mr. St-Jean has pleaded not guilty and was released while he awaits trial.
The art works, allegedly stolen over five years starting in 1999, were part of a collection known as Le Cirque. The prints were in storage in the basement of a DeSerres art supply store in Montreal.
Marc DeSerres, president of the company, said DeSerres provided paper for prints of some of Mr. Riopelle's works as part of a sponsorship. In return, the company received a copy of the albums, which then went into storage.
Mr. St-Jean worked as a sales clerk on the floor of the store, Mr. DeSerres said. The lithographs weren't under high security but weren't easily identifiable in their storage container, he said.
Riopelle paintings regularly sell at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars and can go up to more than a million, and his signed high-quality lithographs are worth thousands.
Mr. DeSerres said he was "as surprised as anyone" to discover the prints, measuring 66 by 94 centimetres, are worth $3,000 to $5,000 each. He said that he is not a big player in the world of art collection.
Experts say one of the major challenges for any art thief is finding a willing buyer. In high-profile cases, dishonest collectors have often commissioned the theft, experts say. Police say several unwitting buyers co-operated in solving the Riopelle case.
Cyrille Girot, Mr. St-Jean's lawyer, said "we still don't know all the facts, all the circumstances."
But the Kijiji ads show "we're not exactly dealing with the theft of the Mona Lisa here," he added, referring to the famous 1911 heist from the Louvre.
Les Perreaux