The mystery of the disappearance of Pablo Picasso’s painting ‘Still Life with Guitar’ has been partially solved this Thursday after being located by the National Police in Madridas sources familiar with the case have informed EL ESPAÑOL.
It is currently being analyzed by the Scientific Police to find out if the packaging has been tampered with. At the moment the investigation is still open to find out what happened, although the canvas It will be delivered next week to its ownera private collector, with the intention that it be finally sent to its original destination: the CajaGranada Foundation exhibition.
The National Police locates the missing Picasso.
The National Police also confirms that the painting found is the missing one, and assesses what He never got into the van of a private transport company to be transferred from the capital to an exhibition in Granada, as reported Europa Press. And the work was scheduled to leave along with 57 other paintings.
On September 25, all of them were stored in offices in the capital. However, the alarms went off on October 6, when three days after the vehicle arrived in the Andalusian city The CajaGranada Foundation detected the absence of the Picasso.
This institution formalized the disappearance report on October 10, and at that time the investigation began that involved the Robbery Group of the National Police of Granada, in coordination with the Historical Heritage Brigade of this body.
All suspicions were initially centered on a pause on the road made by the two workers who were in the vehicle in the Granada municipality of Deifonteswhere they spent the night at the El Nacimiento Rural Hostel, leaving the van on the street, as confirmed by its owner, José Gutiérrez, to EL ESPAÑOL.
However, the cameras of the CajaGranada Foundation detected that the vehicle, at the time of delivery in the Nasrid city, only 57 works were downloadedand not the 58 that were believed to be inside. That made the researchers think that the Picasso had been ‘lost’ along the way.
From that moment on they began to talk about a possible theftperhaps perpetrated by a vehicle that could have followed the van to take advantage of an oversight on the part of its employees and snatch the canvas.
Although everything indicates that during all that time the painting had remained in the country’s capital and did not travel to Granada, integrated into a shipment in which sources close to the investigation indicate that there were paintings by Botero, Juan Gris and several flamenco artists whose joint estimated value was close to the 10 million euros.
The painting by the Malaga painter was not the most valuable, and that is why the theory that it was a commissioned theft gained strength. A hypothesis that gained strength when taking into account its dimensions: barely 12.7 centimeters high by 9.8 wide. Less than an A4 sheet of paper, something optimal to be easily stolen and hidden.
Despite this, it has a market value that ranges between 50,000 and 100,000 euros, although It was insured at 600,000.
During the investigation, Interpol was also alerted, since the canvas was registered in the international database of stolen art from this international body, in anticipation of a possible theft that would have taken this work out of the country.
Looks at Deiphontes
In Deiphontes, this event has been these days the talk among the neighbors. Everyone has followed with interest the news that has put the entire country’s media focus on this municipality of nearly 3,000 inhabitants.
José Gutiérrez, owner of Hostal El Nacimiento, shows EL ESPANOL the place where he parked the van that transported the paintings to Granada.
“He even came New York Times“exclaims a retiree to the journalist. And the inhabitants had never seen the name of their town appear in so many media outlets.
The owner of the El Nacimiento Rural Hostel, which has been the epicenter of all eyes these weeks for having hosted the transporters for one night, joked that when the case was resolved he was going to acquire a copy of the painting to show it off in the restaurant: “A lot of people have come asking about the Picasso.”
However, despite the fact that the painting has been much closer to its owner than expected these weeks -because it is in Madrid and not in Granada-, researchers must now conclude their studies to find out what really happened to the work.
The investigation remains open and at the close of this report the National Police has not yet announced whether or not it was a robbery.
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