An infamous – well, locally infamous – art heist now has a happy ending: Sculpture Tour Eau Claire announced Jan. 6 that an $11,000 bronze sculpture titled Mother and Child, which had been stolen from downtown Eau Claire in May 2013, had turned up last month in a town of Fairchild forest east of Eau Claire.

My colleagues and I were over the moon,” says Sculpture Tour Executive Director Michelle Koehn about the recovery of the missing Madonna. “I felt very honored to pick up the sculpture, which may sound a bit corny. But it’s true.”

In early December, a county parks employee, who was marking trees in the woods, found the sculpture wrapped in nondescript material and stuffed inside a bag. The following week, another parks employee notified the Eau Claire County Sheriff’s Department about the discovery, and the sculpture ended up in the found property room shared by the Sheriff’s Department and the Eau Claire Police Department. It was there that police Detective Jason Kaveney, who was doing inventory, spied the statue and recognized it as the one that was stolen in 2013 from in front of Stella Blues on Madison Street. 

The statue is now back in the art-loving hands of Sculpture Tour Eau Claire, which has informed its insurance company of the recovery. At present, it’s unclear what will happen to the sculpture; typically, if they aren’t purchased after being displayed on the streets of Eau Claire for a year, the 30-some sculptures that are part of the annual tour typically return to the artists who made them. (In this case, that’s sculptor Cody Swanson, an American based in Florence, Italy.)

While the 2013 theft was a setback for Sculpture Tour Eau Claire, Koehn says the recovery bodes well for the 2016 tour. “We have a lineup of very talented artists,” she says. “This year will have more regional artists than any other year, which speaks highly to the level of talent in the Midwest. Sculpture Tour is partnering with a number of community partners so we can work collaboratively to elevate arts/culture in Eau Claire.”

Koehn adds that she hopes the positive community reaction to the recovery of Madonna and Child inspires more people to get involved in Sculpture Tour, either as volunteers or simply by sharing images of the sculptures on social media. “We’d love to see Sculpture Tour and downtown Eau Claire through residents’ eyes,” she says. “That’s the impact of art – sharing to inspire great ideas and a beautiful community.”

Learn more about the tour at sculpturetour.org or search for “Sculpture Tour Eau Claire” on Facebook.