$18 Spent on Pillow Leads to Famously Stolen Piece Found
On June 22, 1978, the peace and quiet at Robert and Helen Stoddard’s Worcester estate was shattered when thieves broke in and made off with 12 pieces of artwork. Robert Stoddard, a prominent industrialist and former trustee of the Worcester Art Museum, was left reeling the next morning as he discovered works by famous artists such as Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and J.M.W. Turner missing from his home.
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Kenneth C. Zirkel
Of the stolen pieces, one of the most notable was Avercamp’s “Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures,” a painting that depicted a serene winter scene with skaters and a stone arch.
While many of the stolen works have been recovered over the years, including Pissarro’s “Bassins Duquesne et Berrigny,” the Avercamp remained elusive. The case went cold for decades, with few leads and no arrests. That’s where the story could have ended, but fate had other plans.
The $18 Pillow: A Bizarre Twist
In 2021, the recovery effort took an unexpected turn. Warren Fletcher, the Stoddards’ nephew, reached out to Cliff Schorer, a prominent art dealer and amateur art sleuth, to help track down the missing paintings. Schorer had already helped recover other stolen masterpieces and was eager to take on this case. He focused on Avercamp’s work and its distinctive features.
While researching online, Schorer stumbled upon a throw pillow listed for just $18 on an online marketplace. The pillow, while not an exact replica, displayed a fragment of the lost Avercamp painting. The image of skaters, a stone bridge, and an overcast sky matched the details Schorer knew well. It was enough to get his attention.
The Reverse Image Search
Using reverse image search, Schorer traced the image back to a color reproduction of the painting on Pixels.com. He discovered that the photograph had been taken years after the painting’s theft. With this new lead, Schorer dug deeper and eventually traced the artwork to a 1995 art fair in the Netherlands, where it had been correctly attributed to Hendrick Avercamp, but mistakenly believed by the purchaser to be a work of his student and nephew, Barent.
From there, Schorer discovered that the painting had been sold to a Dutch art dealer and was now in the possession of their descendants. Determined, Schorer reached out to the descendants, but it was the Stoddard family, with the assistance of their legal team, who formally requested the painting’s return. After a year of negotiations, the Stoddard family’s efforts paid off. In May 2025, the Avercamp was finally returned to its rightful owners, marking the end of a nearly five-decade-long search.
A Long-Awaited Return
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Rijksmuseum
The Avercamp painting has since made its way back to the Worcester Art Museum, where it will be exhibited. For the museum’s Jean and Myles McDonough Director, Matthias Waschek, the recovery is a “profoundly meaningful” moment. “Not only because a long-lost work of art has been returned to the family that once owned it, but because it reflects the enduring bond between the Stoddard family and the Worcester Art Museum,” Waschek said.
For Schorer, this success is a personal triumph, but he’s not done yet. The art dealer is already working on tracking down the other missing paintings from the Stoddard collection, convinced there are still more “morsels” out there waiting to be uncovered.