Venezuelan authorities on Monday welcomed home a painting by the artist Henri Matisse more than a decade after it had disappeared from a Caracas museum. The painting, Odalisque in Red Pants (1925), was recovered in 2012 by F.B.I. agents in Miami when they arrested two people and charged them with trying to sell the long-missing artwork. Officials do not know when it was stolen from the Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas, where it was part of the museum’s collection, because the thieves put up a fake version of the painting in its place — a ruse that was discovered in 2002. Photographs showed that the fake, which experts said was crudely executed, was in place at least as early as 2000. News of the painting’s recovery two years ago caused a stir in Venezuela, and officials on Monday made a show of bringing it home, with a live television broadcast from the Caracas airport. When it was recovered, American officials said the painting was worth $3 million.
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