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Dali delivered

June 30, 2012

A painting by Salvador Dali that was stolen from a New York gallery last week has been returned. It was sent from an unknown location in Europe back to New York in the mail.

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Salvador Dali
Image: picture-alliance/ dpa

Police recovered the stolen Dali watercolor, "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio," after the Manhattan art gallery received an anonymous email saying the painting had been put in the mail and was on its way. The email included a tracking number, which police used to find the painting when it arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport on Thursday.

According to police, the painting was stolen last week when a man came into the gallery, took it off the wall, placed it in a shopping bag and left.

The piece is valued at $150,000 (118,500 euros) and was part of the gallery's first exhibition.

Experts from the gallery are currently checking the painting for authenticity. Police say the package containing the painting had a fake name and European return address, adding that the piece was still in good condition.

Police speculate that publicity surrounding the theft of the painting made it difficult to sell on the black market.

Dali was a Spanish painter known for his surrealistic landscapes of his home land. He died in 1989.

mz/tj (AP, Reuters)