( CNN ) -- A Renoir painting finished in the 1800s , loaned to a museum , reported stolen in 1951 , then bought at a flea market in 2010 has to be returned to the museum , a judge ruled Friday . The story -- and the painting -- date back to 1879 , when impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted `` Paysage Bords De Seine , '' or `` Landscape on the Banks of the Seine , '' which was believed to be for his mistress . It was later purchased by the Paris art gallery Bernheim-Jeune . Then , in 1926 , Herbert L. May , a Renoir collector , bought it from the Paris gallery . In 1937 , May 's ex-wife , Saidie May , loaned the painting to the Baltimore Museum of Art , which reported it stolen in 1951 . Fast-forward nearly 60 years to a flea market in West Virginia , where a Virginia woman was attracted to a nondescript box holding the painting , along with items like a Paul Bunyan doll and a plastic cow . She paid $ 7 for the box . The woman took the painting to the Potomack Company , an Auction House in Alexandria , Virginia , to ask about its value . A Potomack Company specialist thought it might be an original , and further investigation by the National Gallery of Art in Washington and confirmation by a Renoir expert confirmed the hunch . The painting is valued between $ 75,000 and $ 100,000 . The whereabouts of the painting during the six decades it was missing remain unknown . `` Life has so many twists and turns . It has friendships and deaths and divorces and all kinds of chaos , moving , you know changing of occupation , '' Doreen Bolger , director of the Baltimore Museum of Art , told CNN in 2012 . `` It 's very hard to speculate what of those circumstances would cause the painting to change hands . '' The Virginia woman , who had requested to be anonymous , felt the painting was rightfully hers . However , the Baltimore Museum of Art wanted the 5Â½-by-9-inch Renoir returned . So the FBI took possession of the painting until the rightful owner could be determined . On Friday , U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria decided that the painting must be returned to the Baltimore Museum of Art .
Renoir painted `` Paysage Bords De Seine in 1951 . A Alexandria gallery bought the painting , and a collector later purchased it . The painting was loaned to Renoir , which reported it stolen in 1951 . In 2010 , a woman bought it at a flea market for $ between $ 75,000 and $ 100,000 ; it 's valued between $ 75,000 and $ 100,000 .