Police in Tretyakov Gallery. (Photo: AP)

A painting by Russian artist Arkhip Kuindzhi was stolen from the Moscow gallery on Sunday. A suspect has been detained and the artwork has been recovered, reports TASS.

The brazen theft happened in front of witnesses, since the suspect was such a good actor that he was mistaken by a witness as “a museum employee”. It took some time for the patrons to realize that they had witnessed a theft. By the time the alarm was raised, the man had already vanished into the street.

Screenshot of the surveillance video at the gallery. 

A museum employee called in to say that video surveillance footage showed that the thief simply took the painting off the wall and made his escape, the police said.

The stolen painting "Ai-Petri. Crimea" of Arkhip Kuindzhi. (Photo via Instagram)

It took about 12 hours for Russian police to catch the 31-year-old suspect. The Russia Interior Ministry said on January 28 that the 1908 painting of mountain ridges had been hidden at a construction site outside Moscow.

The press service for the Tretyakov Gallery said that the painting hadn’t been damaged during the theft, and that it would go back on exhibition soon. 

Tretyakov Gallery. (Photo: Russia travel bureau)

The Tretyakov Gallery, one of the leading galleries in Russia, from which the painting was stolen, has become a target of several times in recent years according to Russian media.

It is the second embarrassing incident at the Tretyakov Gallery in less than a year after a man damaged one of the most famous paintings with a metal pole last May, the Global News reported.