A bronze statue depicting a classical goddess has been returned to the Sioux City Art Center after being stolen for the second time in June 2017.

The statue was discovered by Shelly Reichert, a resident of the eastern Iowa area who's currently homeless, in the garage of an old friend in Des Moines on Christmas Day, 2018.

Reichert immediately recognized the beauty of the statue, which her friend had received in a trade, and persuaded him to let her take it, even though he warned her he had discovered the statue was stolen after researching the artist's stamp.

The "Goddess of Grapes," a 20-inch tall, 30-pound bronze statue depicting the mythological goddess Ariadne, wife to the revelry god Dionysus, was the work of Minnesota artist Deb Zeller and purchased by Sculpt Siouxland, a nonprofit dedicated to supplying Sioux City's public spaces with sculptural art.

The statue was stolen another time, in 2015, before being quickly returned.

Though the statue is valued by the Sioux City Art Center at anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000 and Reichert is currently homeless and out of work, she maintained a commitment to returning the goddess to its rightful home.

"I mean, you just can't take stuff like that," Reichert said of her determination to return the stolen artwork. "It's art ... if everyone did something like that, what are our kids or our grandkids going to have? Nothing but a bunch of concrete."

"Just because I'm down and out, it doesn't make me want to be a thief," she added.

Reichert admitted that she should have returned the statue to the Sioux City Art Center right away, but due to factors like the weather, her inability to drive and fear of getting in trouble with the law, she hesitated.

In early February, Reichert contacted Rob Lipnick, a professor at Eastern Iowa Community College who taught her in an art history class and asked him for advice. He agreed that she should return it and provided her with the Sioux City Art Center's contact information.

Reichert's inability to store the statue meant that it had to be stored at a friend's home in Waterloo. As the friend grew more anxious about harboring a piece of stolen artwork, Reichert recalled taking her children to the Grout Museum District and decided to ask them to help facilitate the sculpture's return.

Nicholas Erickson, registrar at the Grout Museum District, accepted the return of the statue. Todd Behrens, a curator at the Sioux City Art Center, happened to plan on being in Waterloo last Friday to pick up other artwork when he learned of the statue's recovery.

After nearly two years, Behrens completed the last leg of the statue's 500-mile trip around Iowa by returning it to Sioux City.

"I had reached a point where I had not expected her to return," Behrens admitted. "We had more or less given up."

The only statue ever stolen from the Sioux City Art Center will once again be displayed in public, though now in a more visible and easily monitored area.

In some versions of the of Ariadne, the goddess was recovered from the underworld by her husband after she was slain. Like the figure that inspired it, the "Goddess of Grapes" statue will now return to the light of day.

"I'm glad that she's returned, she was actually beautiful," Reichert said. "I think she's like me though. I've shrunk a couple of inches. Apparently, she started out twenty inches and now she's like 18 inches because they keep ripping her poor little feet off."

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