A painting by Spanish Baroque painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo has been recovered after a Lyft driver took off with it while alighting a gallerist at his destination in Miami.

Rodrigo Salomon of the Salomon Arts Gallery was curating a booth for gallerist Dimitry Shchukin at Art Miami and had brought a truck full of works to exhibit. After a day of unpacking for the fair, Salomon and his wife took a Lyft with the Murillo painting Madonna With Child, meant to go to a private client for authentication. But when they stepped out of their ride-share, the driver allegedly took off.

Nearly a week later, Salomon said the driver has returned the painting unscathed and in its original protective wrapping.

“Lyft never did anything to help us, police never did anything to help us, so it was all caught up in bureaucracy,” Salomon said by phone as he was packing the booth up Sunday evening. Salomon had said he would provide a copy of the police report but when asked for it again Monday, responded: “At this point, the police report doesn’t matter; they really did it haphazardly.”

In recounting how the work was recovered, Salomon said a friend of theirs went to a top prosecutor who sent investigators to the driver’s house on December 8, but nobody was home. Investigators visited again the next day, Saturday, December 9, at 5:30 a.m. and were able to talk with some neighbors as well as leave a card for the driver.

“The lady called me around 9 p.m.,” Salomon said. “She said she was really far away [but] got to our place and returned the painting. She said she was calling, and nobody was answering, but she really wanted to keep the painting.”

Salomon theorized that the driver was trying to wait out a company’s lost and found policy, which he said allows for a driver to claim any property left behind after 30 days. But the driver never opened the package. Salomon said this was because a picture of the painting was included on the outside of it, he said, a common practice so that gallerists can know what’s inside when transporting artwork.

He said that police were not present when the woman returned the painting, but that she had to report that she returned it to Lyft and so took a picture of Salomon with the package.

“She said, ‘That is a very expensive painting,’ so she must have Googled it or something,” Salomon said.

Salomon delivered the painting to the hopeful buyer just a few hours later. The buyer will now have the painting authenticated by an expert in Spain, Salomon said, calling it a “good ending.”

“This can happen to anybody. This happened to be a very expensive painting, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that other people have to deal with this, too,” he said. “We’re still going to pursue this with Lyft. A class action suit would be adequate.”

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