Stolen Masterpiece Found on New York Street

One morning in November 2003, New Yorker Elizabeth Gibson was out for her morning coffee when she noticed a painting nestled between rubbish bags on the street. She rescued the canvas from an ignominious fate, and took it home.

The painting was in fact a highly sought-after work that had been stolen from its owner in 1987. Tres Personajes (Three People) 1970, by Rufino Tamayo, is regarded as a masterpiece among the Mexican artist's oeuvre. Born in 1899, Tamayo is credited with a distinctive fusion of elements of European and American modernism with ideas from pre-Columbian art.

Ms Gibson contacted August Uribe, an expert from Sotheby's, anonymously after the US version of the TV program Antiques Roadshow featured the lost painting. Following a mysterious meeting she led him to the work. The rightful owner, who had bought it at auction at Sotheby's in 1977, was then contacted. The work is again up for auction in New York and is expected to fetch $750,000-$1m (£366,000).

The FBI is now investigating the theft and Ms Gibson is set to receive a promised $15,000 reward from the seller, as well as a smaller finder's fee from Sotheby's, which the auction house has declined to disclose.