Mickey Mouse Paintings Are Recovered

Written by Walter Lombardi Sunday, 26 December 2010 21:55

Rye, NY (AP news )- Two valuable Walt Disney Company watercolors depicting Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice in the 1940 film “Fantasia” have been recovered 17 years after they vanished from a collection on loan to what was then the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Rye, N.Y., The Associated Press reported.

The paintings were brought to the attention of the police on Oct. 30 by an antiques dealer in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., who bought them from someone who had acquired them in a sale of unwanted items from a storage facility in Florida. The police said the dealer researched the watercolors’ history and realized they were stolen. Rye Brook Police Chief Gregory Austin said they were valued at $60,000 to $80,000 at the time of the theft. It was not immediately clear what would become of them. The museum moved to Boca Raton, Fla., in 1996 and eventually closed.

The International Museum of Cartoon Art was founded as the Museum of Cartoon Art by cartoonist Mort Walker in 1974. Dismayed by the fact that so many original works by cartoonists were being lost or destroyed, Walker had begun collecting cartoon art years earlier. The Museum was created to collect, preserve and exhibit original works of cartoon art from all over the world. In 1992, the museum relocated from New York to Boca Raton, Florida, where it's new facility opened to the public in March of 1996. It's collection currently consists of approximately 160,000 pieces of artwork, including original animation art, newspaper strips, comic book art, editorial cartoons, gag cartoons, caricatures, sports cartoons, and book and magazine illustrations. The museum also has over 10,000 books and hundreds of hours of film and video, which will eventually be made available to the public through an on-site research library