Watercolor in Police Storeroom May Be Early Work by Chagall

An art expert says a watercolor found in the police property room may be the work of the late master Marc Chagall.

Lt. Mike Pera noticed the 1 1/2-foot-by-2-foot painting while preparing unclaimed property for auction. “I looked at it out of curiosity and saw it was signed by Marc Chagall,” he said Friday.

‘Very Early Work’

Art expert Mark Hoffman of Maxwell Galleries inspected the watercolor and said it could be a Chagall. If so, he said, “it is a very early work, a very sketchy one.” A closer examination is needed, he said.

Pera, who said he does not know much about art, said, “It looks like something my kids would have done, only not as good.”

The painting, confiscated in 1977 by police in a hallway near a burglary suspect’s apartment, shows the outline of a house with a woman at the door, a man on the chimney with a rooster on his head and a huge woman overlooking the scene. The work is mounted under glass in a wood frame.

It was withdrawn from the pending auction so that the examination can be made. Chagall paintings sell for large sums, the most recent being the $750,000 purchase of an oil by the fanciful painter. The Russian-born artist died in Paris on April 1.