A painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, bought for $7 (€5.4) at a flea market, is no longer up for auction this weekend after a US museum alleged it was stolen more than 60 years ago.

In a statement, auctioneers Potomack said it had checked the respected FBI and Art Lost Register lists of stolen art when Paysage Bords de Seine was consigned for sale last year.

The 19th century landscape had been acquired by an anonymous Virginia resident for $7 at a Shenandoah Valley flea market as part of a box lot that also included a plastic cow and a Paul Bunyon doll.

Potomack, based in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, planned to put the painting – with an estimated value of €58,000 to €77,000 – on its auction block today.

But then the Baltimore Museum of Art stepped into the picture, alerting the auctioneers on Wednesday it had evidence that the small but vibrant painting had been stolen in 1951, although there is no police record of the theft.

The landscape had been loaned to the museum by Baltimore heiress Saidie May in 1937, 11 years after its acquisition by its last documented buyer, her former husband Henry May, from a Parisian art dealer.

“Potomack is relieved this came to light in a timely manner as we do not want to sell any item without clear title,” said Potomack’s proprietor Elizabeth Wainstein, who has alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.