Stolen Monet Is Recovered : Crime: The $2-million painting, taken from a Hollywood home, is found after a potential buyer calls authorities. A suspect is arrested.

A Claude Monet painting, valued at $2 million and recently stolen from a Hollywood home, has been recovered in Newport Beach, where one of three suspects was arrested in connection with the crime, Los Angeles police detectives said Wednesday.

Wendell Williams, 26, a Pepperdine University student who lives in Westwood, was booked for burglary after his arrest in the 3300 block of Pacific Coast Highway on Tuesday afternoon, said Detective Barbara Bella.

The Monet painting, which depicts a canal scene in Belgium, was stolen in broad daylight in August from the home, where it had hung over the fireplace.

Police tracked down the missing painting after a Newport Beach man who was contemplating buying it called the International Foundation for Art Research in New York City to see if the piece had been stolen.

The foundation, which keeps a registry of missing artworks, informed the caller that it had been stolen and then notified Los Angeles police.

Detectives contacted the Newport Beach man, whose name was not released, and took possession of the painting at his residence Monday night.

“The suspect had dropped it off with the man to sell it,” Bella said. “The man wasn’t sure if it was real or not. He knew if it was real, it would be quite valuable.”

Williams, a business student at the university in Malibu, was arrested after he was summoned to Newport Beach to pick up the painting. He was being held Wednesday on $133,000 bail.

Police said they are continuing to search for two other suspects.

Bella said the brazen nature of the crime had intrigued her. In the middle of the afternoon in August, the suspects apparently just walked past workers doing construction on the Hollywood home and stole the four-foot-tall painting.

“They just walked in like they owned the place,” said Bella, who declined to disclose the address of the burglary or the owner of the artwork. “They went directly to the painting, picked it up and walked right out.”

The suspects then fled in a car, she said.

“We’ve been interviewing many different people in connection with the case, but ultimately our major clue was from the foundation,” Bella said.

According to Pepperdine officials, Williams was in his second semester at the university. He was previously a student at Cal State Long Beach, Bella said.

Monet, a renowned French Impressionist who lived from 1840 to 1926, is believed to have painted the canal scene while in his early 30s, shortly after he had decided to concentrate on landscapes but before he had achieved significant success.

Fascinated with the challenge of painting atmospheric conditions such as fog, mist, smoke and the effects of light on water, he seemed to dissolve solid objects in flickering color.

His most celebrated works include views of Paris’ St. Lazare train station, a series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral, created at different times of day, and interpretations of a lily pond at his home in Giverny, north of Paris.

The vast majority of Monet’s work was created in France, where he spent most of his life. The stolen painting, done with a palette of earth tones, was apparently created during a trip he took from France to the Netherlands.

Prices of Monet works escalated rapidly during the art market boom of the late 1980s. The top price for a Monet sold at auction is $24.45 million, paid in 1988 for a landscape titled “Dans la Prairie.”

Times staff writer Suzanne Muchnic contributed to this report.