Comedy Of Errors As “Missing” Picasso Painting Found

Spanish National Police have recovered a Pablo Picasso artwork which went missing while being transported to an exhibition has been recovered – after w wild goose chase involving the police, interpol and a helpful neighbour.

The 1919 gouache and pencil piece, Still Life with Guitar, valued at roughly €600,000, reportedly ‘vanished’ earlier this month during its journey from Madrid to Granada , where it was scheduled to feature in a new exhibition organised by the Caja Granada Foundation.

The painting, owned by a private collector in Madrid, was discovered to be missing when the lorry was unloaded on 6 October, according to curators at the foundation.

In a statement, the Caja Granada Foundation noted that all of the transported works had been under continuous video surveillance from the moment they arrived, three days earlier.

Police were alerted to the disappearance and Madrid´s finest went to work. Interpol was contacted and a missing alert for the painting was issued on the law enforcement database of stolen or missing art objects, which contains descriptions and images of more than 57,000 items.

In fact according to international media reports the painting was never loaded onto the lorry but left inside the building where a neighbour took it for safekeeping.

Indeed it was reported that the neighbour who thought it was someone’s forgotten delivery and it wasnt until she heard of the police report that she checked the package and called the police.

The foundation said it remained hopeful that Still Life with Guitar could still be included in the exhibition, which opened on 9 October and runs until 11 January.

Picasso’s works have long been a magnet for art thieves due to their immense market value. Two of his paintings recently fetched over $140 million at auction.

In 1976, more than 100 of his works were stolen from the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France, though all were eventually recovered.

Pablo Picasso who was born in Malaga is considered one of the defining figures of 20th-century art.