VENICE - POLICE in Venice have recovered a canvas by the celebrated French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir that was stolen years ago in Rome.

A police spokesman told AFP on Wednesday that a resident of Treviso city, north of Venice, had doubts about the origin of the painting after consulting a list of stolen artworks.

'We carried out all verifications, with the help of Interpol and French and British police, and established that the painting - which depicts a mythical scene - belonged to a Roman family from whom it was stolen in 1984,' he said.

Captain Salvatore Di Stefano, another police spokesman, said: 'We don't know the value but it must be pretty high because Renoir did not paint that many mythical scenes.'

With the Treviso resident unable to prove his claim that he bought it at a rummage sale, police seized the painting, dating from around 1895, in order to return it promptly to its rightful owners.

In September 2008, police in Italy, acting on a tip from an art critic, recovered a Renoir nude stolen 33 years earlier from a private collection in Milan. Three suspects were arrested. -- AFP